


every heart is a hunter

by hurryup



Series: agon [1]
Category: D.Gray-man
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ballet, Anal Sex, Background Relationships, Developing Relationship, Dom/sub Undertones, M/M, Oral Sex, Polyamory, Rivalry, Slow Burn, Spitroasting, Threesome - M/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-16
Updated: 2017-10-16
Packaged: 2019-01-18 05:15:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 31,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12381651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hurryup/pseuds/hurryup
Summary: There was no black tulle, no pink toe shoes, no opiate swans, but Allen saw this scene in balletic terms all the same. Link made his entry, stage left, effortlessly sharp and polished in his dark suit jacket. The sharp angles of his coat and brows, with the muted colours of his attire, were the perfect expression of balletic line.Kanda entered, stage right. His black hair was yanked up into a high ponytail, his eyes were hard with intent; he was beautifully, brutally slapdash with his torn-up jeans, his big gray sweater, his loose white shirt. His knuckles were rough, scraped-up.Allen wondered, Am I choosing them, or am I simply succumbing to them?In the ancient ballet studios of Montreal, three very different dancers are assigned to the same gala program.





	every heart is a hunter

**Author's Note:**

> _“... We were drowning in words. We loved ballet because no one spoke. No empty rituals.”_  
>  \- Vadim Gayevski

 

The theatre was furnished like the interior of a music box, buried in a layer of soft, deeply red velvet and trimmed with a dark mahogany. It looked, Allen thought, something like a theatre from a postcard, or a movie; exactly the way you'd think an opera theatre should look, were you to imagine one very quickly. There were angels and paisleys carved into the wings, curving upwards into the lush seating. If you knocked your knuckles against those seats, they'd surely make the same sound as a diamond falling against jeweler's felt.

Of course, all these details were lost from the hard, bluish lights of the stage. Onstage, Allen could see nothing out in the audience but darkness. Darkness, and the occasional glint of an eye — a catlike eye that zigzagged across the stage to follow his movements.

He wasn't too phased by being watched so closely. He wouldn't be a very good dancer if he was.

Lenalee was performing incredibly that night. She'd been strong all week, of course, but she seemed to perform with particular brio tonight; attacking her steps with fantastic accent and speed, twisting into Allen's arms with neckbreak passion. She was the best kind of partner, the kind that could push you and bring the best out in you. She twisted in his arms, moving in and out of embrace, and Allen moved to meet her steps with practiced ardor.

Really, things only began to come undone at the end of the first act.

"Are you alright?" Lenalee asked Allen as they slipped offstage and into the wings. Stagehands were bustling all around them, preparing the set for the next act. Soon enough, Lenalee and Allen would be ushered into their dressing rooms to have their faces dabbed at, shoes checked, and in Lena's case, costume stripped. For the time being, she leaned against the backstage door, taking tiny, careful sips of a water bottle Neah had briskly handed them before disappearing backstage once again.

"Alright?" Allen repeated hazily.

"You look a little flush," Lena said. Gently, she reached out and touched his forehead with her fingertips. They were very cool.

"Ah, well," Allen said. He frowned, prying her fingers away. His face did feel a little hot, as did his hands and neck, but that was just par for the course. "I don't know if you've noticed, but I've been dancing. Quite a bit, really."

Well, he supposed it was also true that he was feeling a little dizzier than usual, but that was almost certainly just the headrush of exertion and thrill of performance. Almost certainly, of course.

"Don't be cheeky," Lenalee protested, worrying at her lower lip with her teeth. "You look unwell, and I'm just — you know I worry."

"I _always_ look unwell," Allen said, knowing it was true enough. He had a slender, leaner build for a male dancer, body more defined by a slim waist and long legs than thick calves or thighs. He was told this gave him something of an unearthly, androgynous stage presence, along with the look of someone who was chronically ill — held in some biological vise. "I feel fine, Lena. So let's knock the next act out the park, alright?"

Lenalee smiled hesitantly, fiddling gently with the tulle hem of her costume. She looked like she wanted to say more, and she very well might've, but then a stagehand was guiding her by the shoulders to her dressing room, and she was gone.

Fifteen minutes later, they were back onstage, dancing _Giselle's_ second act. Lenalee was an unearthly vision in her bridal whites, her dark hair done up into a loose, neat bun. They'd powdered her to a shade of untenable pallor, skin so bright and pale she nearly shined in the sulky darkness. Watching her dance up with slow, tremulous passion, her phrasing so luxuriantly legato, Allen could almost believe she _was_ Giselle — a ghostly vision of a girl, sharp and gamine, transfixed and transfixing. Allen's favourite dead bacchante, shining white as a bride.

Allen moved to hold her by the waist, and Lenalee turned into his touch with practiced ease; her skin was cold to the touch. Cold as all things unliving. Frighteningly cold, really.

Then, as she was spinning back out, arching into position for that first lift, Allen realized that he'd been wrong— it wasn't her that was freezing, but he that was burning up. By the time their first pas de deux of the act had run its course and the audience had erupted into applause, Allen felt the world tilt, at times sliding dangerously out of focus.

They rushed him offstage the second the last act was over, ignoring the screaming, begging demands for another curtain call. Allen's mind blanked out the moment he stepped out of a spotlight — he only thing he was well and truly aware of was a stray rose that had gotten caught in his shoe strap and lodged itself there. It was broad and blue and bursting in a bright, many-layered bloom. _Bravo, Allen!_ _  
_

He must have drifted into unconsciousness, because when he came back to himself, he was sitting in a black canvas chair in his dressing room with a cold cloth around his shoulders. One of the stagehands was pushing a glass of water and and a plate of hot food onto his vanity. She looked a little awestruck: Allen gave her a hazy smile.

Lenalee came bustling in, running up behind Allen's chair very daintily, as if the dressing room was another stage and she was about to make her world debut.

"Are you alright?" She asked frantically, gripping the back of Allen's seat and looking his face over frantically. Up close, Allen could see just how red she was, flushed from her collar to her cheeks with exertion — and worry.

"I'm— I'm fine," Allen said. He smiled again, the same queasy little smile he'd offered the assistant with the huge eyes. He reached up and touched his own forehead. It was blazing hot. Suddenly, he was struck with horror. Had his condition been obvious? Has his fever sabotaged their performance? "Did I... were we—"

"It went wonderfully," Lenalee said. She was still wearing her costume, still airily dreamlike in layered white tulle and chiffons; the standard uniform of any moonlight ballet blanc. The illusion was broken, however, by her dark hair pooling free around her shoulders, liberated from its tight, high bun. It curled upwards around the ends, damp with a slight sweat. "They were tearing their tickets up into confetti and throwing it onto the stage. And your _port de bras—_ you were brilliant, Allen."

"Oh," Allen said. He blinked, trying to force his thoughts into order — once he'd worked Lenalee's words into something resembling cohesion, he breathed a sigh of relief. It had been fine. It was all okay. "Good. Good."

The floorboards beneath his chair was shifting. The room itself was shuddering, spinning, warping itself to impossible degrees around Allen, and his stomach dropped with a dizzy-hot rush of vertigo. Feverish nausea began to climb up Allen's throat, clawing and tearing its way up through his skin, demanding to make its presence known.

"Breathe," Lenalee said, putting her hand on the back of Allen's neck. Her touch provided a cool sort of comfort, like a burn salve. Allen breathed mindlessly, thinking in a black and sticky rush, _Please God, don't let me throw up._

"Good," she said. Then, after a spell, "But the idea is, once you've breathed out, it helps to breathe in again in the near future. There we go. That's it. That's good."

Allen sat and breathed and focused on remaining conscious, anchored by the cold, pleasant sensation of Lenalee's hand pressing down against his warm skin. When he finally felt well enough to move without emptying his stomach, he reached for the glass of water in front of him. Although he wasn't particularly thirsty, he brought it to his lips and took a small sip. The moment the water touched his lips, he realized he'd been parched all along, and tipped it back and drained it, drinking it down with the desperation of a man who was running dead empty. As soon as the cup was drained, another one appeared before him, and he started to drink that too.

"Alright," Allen admitted, shiny wet lips pressed to the brim. "So, there's a chance that I might be... a little unwell."

"Oh, wow, you _think?_ " Lenalee sighed. She gave Allen a smack on the shoulder, not hard, but contrite — a petty gesture of violence Allen was well-acquainted with. Lenalee's slap of worry.

“Well, you know. Just maybe,” he said. A little of his usual charm had returned — a good sign, all things considered. “The jury's still out.”

“A real puzzle,” Lenalee agreed. She reached up and tousled Allen's damp hair, then walked back around Allen's chair to address him face to face.

Allen blinked her into focus. There was a slight sheen of sweat on her biceps, and she was bracing herself back against the wall with visible fatigue. All the same, there was a vivid spark of life in her eyes, one that exhaustion had not yet doused.

"You know, Lavi just managed to catch me as I was heading here," Lenalee said, speaking in a wry, playfully conspiratorial whisper. "Apparently, he saw Yuu Kanda in the boxes."

"Kanda?" Allen said. He lowered his cup back onto the vanity in surprise, glass clattering loudly when he misjudged the necessary force. The name had sliced through his fever haze like a knife through butter. "Yuu Kanda from — from the American Ballet Theatre?"

She laughed, “The one and only.”

"Lavi... must be mistaken," Allen said slowly. "Isn't he — isn't he touring with ABT in _Mayerling?"_

"Oh, I think their tour wrapped last week," Lenalee said. "I wish I could've flown out to see it. He's so wonderfully talented."

"No kidding," Allen said, voice taut, belied by an almost imperceptible undercurrent of hysteria. He could feel a familiar tension building in his shoulders, his body drawing itself into a tight, anxious line. "He's only their star principal."

"With a temper to match," Lenalee said, a bemused smiling quirking her lips upwards.

Allen let out a breathy, helpless little laugh. The audience might not have noticed his fever, but Kanda was a seasoned professional — if Allen had been even slightly off his game, Kanda would know. He put down his glass of water, feeling a second wave of hot, flushing sickness lurching in his stomach. He couldn't stand the idea that he'd potentially embarrassed himself in front of one of the biggest and most famously judgemental starts of the ballet world — or worse, embarrassed the entire Royal Canadian Ballet.

"What, exactly," Allen temporized, watching a stray bubble crawl up the side of his glass, "is Yuu Kanda even doing in Montreal?"

There was the sound of a door slamming open, and Allen turned his head to watch an agitated-looking Cross barrell through, cigarette dangling from his lips.

"Probably because I invited him here, idiot," Cross said. His voice was a little raw, maybe with worry, maybe just with smoke. He smacked Allen upside the head with a dusty pink pointe shoe, haphazardly stolen from a nearby bin, and Allen winced. "Of all the fucking nights to get sick, kid. Jesus Christ . I thought you were gonna fucking collapse mid _-fouette_."

"Oh, pop a Vallium, Cross. It went fine," Neah said, following Cross through the door half a step behind. His eyes landed on Allen, observing him with a cool objectivity, cold eyes burning through the thinnest layers of gold leaf. "If anything, it added to the performance. Gaunt, anguished, legs trembling — that's the peak of Romanticism."

The cigarette in Cross's mouth twisted to follow the unhappy purse of his lips, smoldering as surely as his expression.

"Yeah, yeah, because watching our male principal die on stage would be real fucking Romantic."

"I'd pay to see it," Neah said blackly. Allen held up both hands, too exhausted to be entertained by this familiar back-and-forth.

"Backtrack," he pleaded, eyes roving between both artistic directors with a haggard confusion. "You... you _personally invited_ Yuu Kanda to our performance?"

Cross nodded, closing the open door behind him and Neah so that he could lean back against it while he smoked.

"His contract with the American Ballet Theatre just ended," Cross drawled, yanking his cigarette out of his mouth and reaching to tap the ashes into Allen's cup of water. Prick. "He's been considering joining our company as a principal dancer. Would be a big catch for us. I wanted to show him our way of doing things."

"Oh," Allen said blankly. He reached up and touched his forehead, his skin burning warm against his fingertips. He was suddenly struck by a hot whip of panic. _Did I just ruin our chances at that?_

Just as he was on the verge of a tumultuous apology, he felt Lenalee moving to Allen's side, pressing a reassuring hand against his shoulder. It's fine, she seemed to say. Don't worry.

"Either way," Neah continued, either dismissing Allen's distress or ignoring it out of politeness, "we've signed him for our December gala as a guest artist. You'll be in rehearsals with him as soon as next week."

Lenalee blinked in surprise, repositioning herself into an upright posture.

"The autumn gala _is_ coming up, isn't it?"

"It'll be one hell of a show," Neah agreed, mouth curving into a fierce, self-congratulatory grin. "We're also borrowing Howard Link from the Danish Royal Ballet, plus Noise Marie and Miranda Lotto from the Paris Opera Ballet. Motherfucking _star-studded_. Gonna knock The Royal British Ballet's stupid spring gala right out of the damn park."

"Can you... can you not bring your stupid goddamn vendetta into this?" Cross groaned. "Just this once?"

"Absolutely out of the question,” Neah said. He plucked Cross's cigarette away and brought it to his own lips, taking a smug little drag while Cross glowered. There was something inexplicably dignified about the way his diaphragm rose with smoke, something that surely spoke of a former dancer's grace.

"We literally _just_ finished this production's run,” Allen protested wanly, shifting ever so slightly in his seat. “Isn't it a little too early to be talking about more rehearsals?”

"Never too early," Cross said. "The gala is important. All our sponsors will be there. The better the show, the better our funding.”

Neah laughed softly, a slow, catlike smiling rising to his lips.

“That's my Cross,” he sighed, hot, dark smoke roiling out from between his white teeth. “Always has his mind on the money.”

Cross snatched his cigarette back from between Neah's lips, nostrils flaring.

“What the hell do you think sustains this company?” He groused, unimpressed.

“Glory,” Neah said easily. He folded his arms behind his back. “Power. Prestige. Artistic pretense. Pitchers and pitchers of ice cold, diamond-white champagne.”

“Mm.” Cross paused, seeming almost mollified by this. He looked Neah up and down with the lazy, half-mast stare of a panther. “I'll concede to that.”

Cross straightened up, stubbing his cigarette out against the side of Allen's glass before dropping it to float along the side, the water now sullied an unpleasant, milky gray. Allen whipped his towel across the room in annoyance, and Cross dodged it without so much as a glance, leaving it to smack wetly against the doorframe.

“Well, if you'd excuse me, I need to get going,” he continued. He pushed up his glasses by the bridge of his nose, huffed a breath as if bored, and yanked the door behind him wide open with a swift twist of his wrist. “I have a temperamental bravura dancer to court, and a dozen would-be ballerinas to entertain.” His eyes roved over Neah, working his body up and down. “Don't come looking for me unless it's with a pitcher diamond-white champagne.”

Neah rolled his eyes, sweeping his dark bangs back with a theatrical affect.

“I'm sure that'll hardly be necessary, Mr. Marian,” he returned with feral, biting sarcasm, that once coquettish smile transforming itself quite rapidly into a mean-spirited rictus. “You'll have a dozen would-be ballerinas attending to your thirst, won't you?”

Cross strolled out with a languid swaggering, shutting the door behind him with a thump. Outside, in the hallway, Allen thought he could hear him lighting up another cigarette, the wispy fizzle of a lighter surging to life. The fall of his boots beat down, down the hallway, until he could be heard no more.

Neah laughed, glancing back at Allen.

“There's another thing that sustains this corps de ballet,” he said. There was a special kind of bitterness in his voice, in his eyes. “Meaningless sex.”

“Don't be so cynical,” Lenalee said, folding her arms. She sounded somewhat miffed. “We're not all like Cross Marian, sir.”

“Oh, I'm not being cynical at all,” Neah said. “In fact, I'm dead serious.”

“How very out of character,” Allen said.

Neah rolled his eyes, continuing flatly, “You'll understand someday. Power, glory, champagne, sex; these are all just things to get you through the night. And there's nothing wrong with that.”

“And what gets you through the night?”

“The thrill of a violent reckoning, obviously,” Neah said.

Allen pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed, “Served separate from all that sex, I should hope.”

Neah laughed darkly. “You'd be surprised.” He paused, glancing down to inspect his fingernail beds. Then, without so much as glancing back up, he said, “Get some sleep tonight, Allen. If you so much sneeze during our rehearsal next Monday, I'll slit your throat open from ear to ear.”

Allen frowned, leaning forwards in his seat.

“Is that a threat, or an expression of genuine concern?”

“Who knows?” Neah shrugged. “I get a kick out of being emotionally vague and mildly menacing. In fact, there's only one thing I like as much.”

“And what's that?”

“Dramatic exits,” Neah said. He stalked towards the dressing room door, opening it in one broad, lazy swing. “See you Monday, bitches.”

He slammed the door behind him with enough force that the doorframe shook. Allen let out a breath of exasperating, dragging one hand down his face.

“And there he goes. Like a hurricane,” Allen muttered. Lenalee laughed into her hands, and it was practically a sigh. “I wish he'd stop doing that.”

“Theatricality runs in the family, I suppose.”

“I hope you're not suggesting that extends to me,” Allen frowned.

“Well, he _is_ sort of your uncle,” Lenalee teased. She patted Allen on the shoulder lightly. “Plus, you can be pretty showy yourself.”

“Only because I get paid to be,” Allen protested, and Lenalee laughed again; a high, bright sound with a somewhat musical cantilena. Beautiful, of course, in the purest and truest sense that anything at all could be considered beautiful.

“I should take a shower,” Lenalee finally said, grin fading. She leaned down and pressed the flat of her palm to Allen's forehead, testing his temperature. The carefree light in her eyes dimmed, soon replaced by an expression of gently composed concern — narrow, feminine eyebrows drawn together, pretty pink lips pursed together into this contrite little frown. “Will you be alright?”

“I can make it back to my apartment just fine, if that's what you're saying,” Allen said, scratching the back of his neck. “I'll... I'll get cleaned up and call a cab back.”

Lenalee's expression softened. She straightened up, hands coming to fiddle with some of the embroidered beadwork on the bodice of her tutu.

“Promise?”

Allen nodded, firm.

“Promise.”

“Good, then,” she said, lips upturned into a small, rueful smile. She backed up towards the door, eyes still trained on Allen under a quizzical brow. She reached up and touched the doorframe — and there, right there, was the poise of a bonafide _prima assoluta_ , a fluid grace of movement that was indelibly written into the delicate posing her wrists, the featherlike splay of her pale fingertips. When she spoke again, it was with a gentle undercurrent of humour, smile turning coy. “I'd hate to see your throat slit.”

“Ear to ear, no less.”

“Drink lots of water,” Lenalee continued, one hand tightening its grip around the door frame, the other curling around the handle just short of wrenching it free. “And get something to eat, too, once your stomach settles. Also, maybe you should take something—”

Allen rolled his eyes, motioning towards the door with a sweeping gesture.

“Get out of here, Giselle,” he said. “Do yourself a favour and dance yourself into some sweatpants.”

Lenalee laughed one last time.

“Only if you promise to do the same.”

And then, she was gone. The door clicked shut, and Allen was alone, slumped against his canvas-backed dressing room chair. On the table, the damp ashes off of Cross' cigarette were sinking down to the bottom of his glass, swirling through the water in ghostly grays; the reverberation of Lenalee's laughter lingered on and on in the air like a jilted Wilis. With his black ballet shoes, Allen traced out patterns and symbols into the floorboards beneath him. Here, an aimless, perfect mock _ronde de jamb_ without an audience, stirring up the dust.

Outside, beyond his dressing room, and beyond the stage, the audience were filing out of theatre and onto the darkened streets. Critics, balletomanes, and artistic passiones would gather in groups of two or three, holding their furs, their layered scarves, their peacoats. They'd speak in impenetrable theory-laden prose, their tones quietly rapturous as they thumbed restlessly through the evening's program.

Lighting a cigarette of his own, a man Allen had never met before watched them in sulky silence. He stood with his back pressed to the arch wrapping around the theatre's big, red doors, teeth digging down into the papery surface of his Newport.

His name was Yuu Kanda.

His name was Yuu Kanda, he would never, ever forget the way Allen Walker had moved that night.

 

♦♢♦

 

It was 7 PM EST when Howard Link's flight landed at the Pierre-Elliott-Trudeau Airport. He popped an Advil as he descended the plane, exhausted, restless, and thoroughly jetlagged.

Although just barely dinnertime in Montreal, it was already long midnight back in Copenhagen, and every muscle in Link's body was crying for him to find the nearest soft surface and pass out immediately. He was absolutely awful at sleeping on planes — something that had proven a disadvantage in his line of work, which often kept him crisscrossing Europe for tours and various gala appearances. This, however, would be his first time performing in Canada, and only his second performing in North America.

With rest more or less out of the question, Link had busied himself on the plane by reading. He'd stowed several English-language novels in his carry-on bag, hoping to refresh himself on the language. It had been some time since he'd had a proper application for it, after all, and it would be nothing short of an embarrassment if he couldn't express himself on par with his peers. Link was an ambassador to his medium, as well as his company. It would not do well to appear overly provincial.

“Hello, my name is Howard Link,” he muttered to himself as he approached the bag check, waiting for his luggage to circle around — two thick, well-used black valises. He cringed internally, his English coming off as heavily accented even to his own ears. He tried again, this time forcing each syllable clearly. “Hello, my name is Howard Link.”

That sounded marginally better. Less strained. Less _German_.

It really had been too long since he'd last performed in North America.

To distract himself from his nerves, Link busied himself with reviewing the performance roster for next month's gala. Cross Marian and Neah Campbell, serving in tandem as the international event's artistic directors, had specifically hand-picked their dancers from the world's leading ballet companies — with dancers representing a diverse array of styles from Russia to France to New York.

Noise Marie and Miranda Lotto were a wonderful pair, of course. Although Miranda (a German emigre, much like Link) was said to suffer from terrible stage nerves, her plasticity and expressive style were unmatched, and she paired beautifully with the steady, grounded Marie. They'd certainly be performing some classic, Old World pas de deux. A pleasure to watch, no doubt. Then, there was Lenalee Lee, the The Royal Canadian Ballet's Chinese-American principal female. Long-legged and somewhat gamine, she displayed an impressive range and flexibility, her dancing pure, lucid, and imbued with an indescribable melancholy.

Most interesting, however, would be the chance to dance on the same stage as Allen Walker and Yuu Kanda — two of the most famous male dancers in the business and, ostensibly, Link's greatest professional rivals.

Stylistically, Yuu Kanda embodied a curious cross-pollination of neoclassical American dancing and traditional Russian bravura. He had the speediness and lightness of a Balanchine dancer, but this bombastic, animalistic sense of attack that remained the definite reminder of a fundamentally Russian schooling. Link had had the pleasure of seeing him in _Le Corsaire_ a year and a half prior — a ballet that was bang-on Yuu Kanda territory, with its heart-bursting, percussive energy.

From the moment he'd strut onstage, Kanda's aggressive charisma was all but pouring, working every sinew to flaunt the beauty of his body. He was a young god of earth and air, using the elastic spring of gravity-drawn _fondu_ s to rebound in space and sit there _en tailleur_ ; overtly masculine in the power of his leaps, yet subtly feminine in the placing of his arms. Yuu Kanda was sexual mystique, raw power, and breakneck virtuosity.

Yuu Kanda also just so happened to be utterly and completely insufferable. The two of them had met only once, back, at some industry evening a year ago, and it... well.

_(A hot night, the summer wind at the back of Link's neck, hard eyes full of hate, the front of Kanda's shirt, soaked in champagne, Kanda's punch-drunk mouth, Kanda's teeth, strong hands fumbling for Link's zipper. The hot burn of shame, of guilt. Three words, “Will you stay?”)_

It could've gone better.

Link swallowed hard, forcing the memory from his mind.

Allen Walker was a different specimen of dancer altogether, however. Nothing like the aggressive, often brutish Kanda. His style was catlike, catlike, fluid, and almost shockingly feminine. An adagio dancer by nature, his movements melting into one dreamy, liquid line, his phrasing luxuriously legato. It was usual, to be certain, to find a male practicing the art with such a soft, elegiac angle — and Allen exploited that exotic, androgynous stage appeal for everything it was worth. A real _modern_ sort.

Link wouldn't be terribly surprised if Allen abandoned classical ballet within the year to dally with some half-baked modern dance troupe. He would, however, be disappointed. Allen possessed a tremendous level of skill, one Link would prefer not to see squandered on inferior productions.

It would be a waste. A waste of beauty. This was the same thought Link often had about Kanda as well — _what a waste of beauty._

He resolved to put it out his mind. He'd arrived here to work. No distractions, no mistakes, not this time.

_Keep it professional, keep it neat. Make your company proud. Make the Director proud._

“Hello, my name is Howard Link,” Link mumbled, dragging his suitcases off the moving ramp and hauling them down onto the ground. “Hello, my name is Howard Link.”

“I heard you the first time, sweetheart.”

Link jerked upright in surprise. Fingers tightening around the handle of his suitcase, he turned his head to follow this intruding voice to its source.

 _Catlike_ was one word that came to mind to describe Neah D. Campbell, but not in the same way Allen Walker was catlike — it wasn't grace or poise that lent Neah his feline air, but rather, his languid posture and predatory eyes. He was brown as a nut, dark-haired, and had a Cheshire-wide smile. It was difficult to say how old he was, just looking at him — logically, Link knew that Neah was easily in his late thirties, if not forties, but his dark skin was smooth and unlined, giving him a curiously ageless look. Handsome, too, in his own too-keen, wind-shellacked sort of way.

Neah Campbell was well-known in the ballet community — not only for his skills as an artistic director, choreography, and composer, but for being a scandal unto himself. Runaway scion of a group of London-based artistic directors and society patrons, he seemed to stir up trouble wherever he went. It was somewhat disheartening, Link thought, to see a community as traditional as classical ballet filled with silly gossip, but he could hardly deny Neah's genius. He'd had the opportunity to see his staging of _Manon_ three years ago, and it had been simply unforgettable. Raw. Intense.

"Neah Campbell, I presume?" Link said, making a concentrated effort not to let him embarrassment show. Neah looked Link up and down, mouth curving up into an easy smile.

"I didn't think you'd recognize me."

"I have a good memory for faces," Link continued cautiously. Then, relaxing marginally, he added, "I remember seeing yours in that... very colorful interview you gave for Dance Magazine last month.”

Neah's eyes lit up.

"You read my interview?"

"Everyone did,” Link said, blunt. “You caused something of a sensation."

“I am pretty sensational, aren't I?” Neah all but preened, gold eyes warming up to a nectared amber. Link rolled his eyes, unconvinced.

"You vowed to beat Sheril Kamelot to death with his own genitals."

“Oh,” Neah frowned, cupping his chin with one hand. “Damn. I did say that, didn't I?”

Link sighed, hand flying away from his suitcase to pinch the bridge of his nose. All around them, passengers were shuffling by, reaching across the runway for their luggage or watching the bags cycle by with dead eyes, waiting with the exhausted patience unique to the travel-weary. Link himself felt he was at the end of his rope — as pleased as he was to be meeting Neah Campbell so soon, he was more interested in dropping flat into his hotel room than making idle chitchat in the middle of a crowded airport.

"Anyways,” Link continued loudly, “I... wasn't expecting you to greet me in person. That was considerate of you."

"I prefer to deal with my dancers one-on-one,” Neah said. His lazy smile sharpened into something a little more calculated — an arch, lascivious smirk. Flirtatious, Link realized with a hot flush of mortification. “Real hands on, if you know what I mean." He edged closer to Link, feathering a faux-casual hand up to brush over Link's shoulder. "You know, you've got the cutest little accent."

Link decided, then, that he didn't like Neah Campbell very much.

He jerked backwards gracelessly, skirting away from the brush of Neah's fingertips. Neah threw his head back and laughed, retracting his hand with a curl.

"Ease up, Howie. I'm messing with you.” A thoughtful pause. “You mind if I call you Howie?”

“I mind _very much._ ”

“Gotcha,” Neah said. He shoved one hand into the pocket of his trousers, coming up with a rattling set of car keys. He twirled the ring around his fingers, that strangely fine-edged grin of his never wavering for a moment. “Anyways, Howie, can I offer you a ride back to your hotel? I was hoping to have a chat with you real quick about your gala showcase.”

They ended up hauling Link's bags back to Neah's car — an old, ratty blue beast with manual windows, busted central locking, creaky doors and a concerning rattle in the air conduct. As Neah struggled and fumbled to unlock his trunk, Link leaned delicately against the hood, listening to Neah ramble off.

Now that business was the order of the day, it was a little easier to see the spark of artistic genius that had pushed Link to accept the offer to perform in Neah's gala. When Neah was talking ballet, the bullshit was all off, and he barreled through technical details and half-formed ideas with a rolling, intent cantilena.

“Of course, I know it's traditional for dancers to decide their own performances when it comes to gala events,” Neah said, “and fucking yeah, makes sense, who wouldn't want to handpick the variation that best demonstrates their skill — ah, finally,” the trunk clicked open. Link pushed off the side of the car, moving to help Neah load the trunk. The trunk was dark, cavernous, and filthy, littered with everything from old playbills and sheet music to empty Fresca bottles and condom wrappers. “I mean, look. I wouldn't make you dance anything you absolutely hated, but I do want to guide your choice. I have a specific vision of the kind of program I want — diverse, lively, capitalizing on the individual strengths of each dancer. You follow?”

“I understand what you're saying,” Link said, still fussing with his bags. Once they were securely packed in, Neah brushed his hands off on his thighs, then reached up to close the door in one rough, rushed slam.

“I wanted you for a solo, of course — your specialty, I think,” Neah said, hands splayed flat over the cheap, metallic sheen of his car. “You're more effective on your own. Beyond that, you've got this whole classical vibe. So, something noble, something Romantic, something classic. _Giselle, Swan Lake, La Sylphide, Raymonda_.”

“I expected nothing less.”

“Fabulous,” Neah said. “I'm thinking the Prince's Act 1 solo from _Swan Lake_ , 'specially the Nureyev choreography. Well. Nureyev and me. I've got my own ideas to contribute.” Neah rounded the car, swinging the door to the driver's door open. “I've got all the aggressive virtuoso I need in Yuu Kanda — you're gonna be his counterpoint. Measured, technical. _Princely_. Wouldn't you say that's more your speed, Goldilocks?” Link shifted, uncomfortable, and Neah chuckled, sliding into the car. “My own little German princeling.”

“Um,” Link said. Intelligently.

Not knowing what to say, he opened the passenger door and wedged himself inside. Neah's car had a dusty, warm scent to it, like aged fabric. There was a fast food wrapper on the dash. Neah reached for it and tossed it carelessly into the back seat while Link quietly buckled himself in, back ramrod against the seat.

“You're a real stiff drink, aren't you?” Neah said, twisting his key into the ignition. “Like a toy soldier. Ugh. Typical _Capricorn_.”

Link blinked. “You... know my birthday?”

Neah laughed again, harsh, like he'd just beaten Link at something.

“So you really _are_ a Capricorn,” he said. Then, sardonically, “Look at us, already fast friends. I'm sure this next month of rehearsals will go fantastically.”

Somehow, Link wasn't so sure.

He kept quiet for the remainder of the ride, mostly too worn to even attempt conversation with Neah. Restless, Neah tapped senseless rhythms into the wheel at red lights, cursing under his breath at pedestrians, student drivers, and every so often, his own car.

He flipped from radio station to radio station, pausing on one song for a minute at a time — some fruity dance hall pop, a burst of crackling West coast jazz, the disjointed coda of some opera that Neah actually seemed to recognize. His every mannerism suggested a kind of wild, bucking nature, never stalling. He was forever caught in some state of fevered, perpetual motion.

Link closed his eyes, head lolling back against the headrest. Distantly, he wondered if it was simply the nature of artists to be a little crazy— or perhaps that was just the specific quality of genius?

When he opened his eyes again, Neah was pulling up in front of the hotel — a grand, old-fashioned building with a regal marble arch that likely would've impressed Link had he not been so out of sorts.

“Welcome home,” Neah purred, parking by the curb. “Well. Your home for the next thirty-odd days. Semantics.”

“Semantics,” Link agreed tiredly.

They piled out of the car, Neah reaching around the yank Link's luggage out of the trunk without delicacy or grace. With those big, secretive, schismic cat eyes, he watched as Link hauled one bag under his shoulder and grabbed the second by the handle.

"You don't need me to keep you company up there?" He all but purred. His eyes raked over Link's body slowly, starting at the feet, then moving over his calves, thighs, chest and arms. Link blanched. “Could get lonely in that big, cold bed.”

 _"Excuse me?_ ”

Neah didn't laugh this time, but he did grin, teeth bared in carnivorous satisfaction. Sphinxlike.

"I'll see you in rehearsals tomorrow,” he snorted. He reached over and patted Link on the arm, his air now distinctly condescending. “Get some sleep, champ."

Neah turned on his heels and headed back to his cars, descending the curb in quick, fluid steps — the gait of a former dancer, Link realized hazily. With nothing left to say, he hefted his back and turned towards the double-door entrance of the hotel, already dreaming of changing into something comfortable, brewing a cup of tea, and getting some sleep.

Tomorrow, there would be work to be done. Link owed it to his company to make the best impression possible — just as surely as he owed it to himself.

 

♦♢♦

 

Allen showed up to practice Monday morning already dressed in his dance clothes — black athletic leggings, plain white shirt, a simple pair of canvas dance flats slung haphazardly over one shoulder.

Outside, it was clear and cool, the early breezes of October rot settling over September's corpse with crisp refinement. The studio building, by comparison, seemed slightly stuffy, warm and narrow and smelling powerfully of dust and aged wood. It was a scent he'd grown to like; absurdly, it gave him the impression of standing inside an oversized grand piano, or a desecrated church.

He navigated down through the foyer, up the stairs, and across the hall to the Studio A entrance, pausing only momentarily to kick off his Converse and shove his canvas shoes on.

Inside, to his immediate left, Lenalee was standing with her back against the wall. The way she was positioned right next to the door, you'd think she was preparing for an ambush. And maybe she was.

“Good morning,” she greeted him warmly, speaking over the brim of a tall black thermos. Lenalee had always been in the habit of keeping an electric kettle and some teas in the dressing room — the hot steam rising from her cup carrying a buoyant, vaguely floral scent, like a dry sherry. “Feeling better?”

“Peachy keen,” Allen said, pulling his bag off his shoulder by the strap, shoving his sneakers inside and zipping it back up hastily. This wasn't a lie, not really. He certainly felt much better, compared to last week. “Got some sleep, took a lot of baths. Just had to sweat it out.”

Lenalee turned her head and looked at Allen hard, eyes searching. Whatever she was looking for, however, she seemed to quickly find, and her expression gentled visibly into something soft and fond.

“Well, you do look a lot better,” she said. A small smile appeared on her face. “So I guess you're off the hook, huh.”

“Was I ever _on_ the hook?” Allen asked, playful. Lenalee rolled her eyes.

“Absolutely! You had us all worried sick,” she said staunchly.

Allen hummed, unslinging his bag and walking over to the bench to set it down.

“Do you think Cross was worried?”

Lenalee frowned.

“Well. He _might_ have been. I can never really understand what's going through his head.”

“Frankly, I wouldn't want to understand,” Allen said flatly.

He glanced about the studio — a spacious, room with a slate gray floor, the walls paneled with mirrors and practice barres. Neither Cross or Neah had yet arrived, there was an atmosphere of giddy horseplay. Some corps dancers were lingering in the corner, gossiping in small groups of threes and fours as they took careful sips from plastic coffee cups. Muffling their giggles into their hands, they looked like misbehaving schoolchildren, shoving and joking while their teacher's backs were turned. Allen swept over the swath of them with his eyes, tracking over each face until he was staring back at his own, reflected in the mirror at the far end of the room.

“Kanda still isn't here yet,” Lenalee sighed, following Allen's gaze with her own, “and rehearsal starts in— what, ten minutes?”

“Well, he is known for being a diva,” Allen commented. “I expect he just shows up whenever he damn well feels like it.”

“He does not,” Lenalee protested. “He has a temper, sure, but he's no slacker. Maybe he ran into traffic.”

“You sound like you know him well.”

Lenalee hummed, thoughtful.

“We trained together when we were younger. School of American Ballet.”

“Right, right, you're a New York girl.”

“Well, I guess I used to be,” Lenalee said. Allen turned his head to look at her properly. “But this is my home now.”

“Have you two kept in touch since then?”

Lenalee shrugged.

“On and off. Kanda's _terrible_ with technology.”

Allen's eyes wandered back towards the crowd. Only one of them was standing alone. Allen focused his gaze on this dancer's figure until he was the focal point of his vision. He was standing with his back against the barre, legs crossed — the muscled legs of a dancer at the height of his career. His face was mostly obscured by the book he was holding in front of him, but Allen recognized him all the same: this wasn't some random, anonymous corps dancer, but the principal _etoile_ of The Royal Danish Ballet.

“Howard Link,” Allen murmured, eyes narrowing into an acute, analytic stare. Link turned the page of his book. “He's...” _Incredible, brilliant, did you see him in La Sylphide, his technique was flawless—_ “He's... wow.”

“A little intimidating, isn't he?” Lenalee said, following Allen's gaze back to Link. He was standing, Allen realized, not simply with his legs crossed, but a perfect fourth position; even outside of practice, he was the model of balletic form and etiquette. “It's sort of exciting, though, all these European stars travelling out here to dance with our company. You should meet Maria and Miranda, later — I think they're in Studio B at the moment. I had the chance to introduce myself a little while ago. They were very kind.”

“Have you introduced yourself to Link yet?” Allen asked. Lenalee smiled, but it was a nervous, tentative smile that couldn't quite be persuaded to relax. She fiddled with her thermos, bringing it up to her mouth, but didn't take a sip.

“He... he looks busy, don't you think?”

Allen returned Lenalee's smile ruefully. “You're not afraid of him, are you?”

“Absolutely not,” Lenalee fought back. Her smile began to slip. She paused to right it once more, remembering herself. “It really isn't that. He just... has this aura, you know? So terribly stern. I feel like if I make even one conversational misstep, I'll lose his respect.”

“I doubt that's true,” Allen said, blase. “I'm sure he's a big softy, deep down.”

“Yeah? What makes you so sure?”

“He's a _dancer,”_ Allen said emphatically, as if this was the simplest, most obvious answer in the world. “We're a miserable crowd of bleeding-heart artists.”

“Not in Europe,” Lenalee protested. “In Europe, they drill their dancers like _soldiers_.”

“Shh,” Allen said. He glanced back at Link, who hadn't moved an inch, face still masked by the glossy flap of his book. “I'm gonna go introduce myself.”

“At least _try_ to appear respectable,” Lenalee said wanly, voice strained. A tensile quality to her voice. “You represent your company as well as your country. Keep the _flirtation_ to a minimum.”

“Drink your tea,” Allen said, waving her off. Lenalee made a face, but her eyes were bright and fond.

Leaving his bag on the bench, he went off towards Howard Link, weaving through the shuffling crowds of dancers with practiced ease.

He couldn't really make out Link's face from this angle, but he could see his body. And appreciate it. The bodies of male dancers tended to fall into two categories — waifish and flexible, or thick-armed and sturdy. Link was somewhere in between; slim and narrow, but also visibly strong; his tapered waist came up to rest under a pair of broad, sturdy shoulders.

“Hey there,” Allen said. He stretched his hand out for a shake, putting on his best smile. “Just thought I'd come over and introduce myself. Allen Walker.”

Link lowered his book, and for the first time, Allen was able to get a proper, up-close look at him — all of him. With his ramrod posture, intelligent eyes and long, meticulously constructed blonde braid, he seemed at once a both a delicate and surprisingly inhibiting character. His eyebrows were startlingly dark and stern, a detail Allen had picked up on from the very first moment he'd seen Link walk onstage. However, there were some surprises here and there —  most interestingly, two beauty marks above Link's left eyebrow, small enough to be obfuscated from an audience by make-up, but prominent enough to set his look charmingly off-kilter.

“My name is Howard Link,” he answered. His voice was smooth and firm, as if practiced, though it was roughened considerably by an accent — Danish, Allen supposed, or another language like it.

“I know who you are,” he laughed, head back, throat exposed. He was posing himself, and he _knew_ he was posing himself, but still couldn't bring himself to stop. “Still, I have to say — it's different, seeing you in person. As opposed to watching you from the audience, that is.”

“I was just thinking the same thing,” Link said carefully, eyes roaming over Allen's face. _Oh_ . _He's looking at my scar. He's looking at my scar. He's looking at—_ “It's... an absolute pleasure to meet a dancer of such a high caliber.”

Link's eyes were soft, but intent. He stared at Allen with very black pupils, devouring him with his eyes. Allen relaxed his posture — he didn't feel like posing anymore. Instead, he felt like hiding; suddenly, his face felt hot. Link had an analytic gaze — the kind that seemed to assess you with some special knowledge. He knew about dance, knew quite a lot — that much was clear.

“Oh,” Allen demurred. He retracted his hand, sliding it against his side, and let out a quiet little laugh. “You... you took the words right out of my mouth.” Then, he smiled, sly. “Although somehow, I didn't think we'd be the same height.”

Link didn't laugh, but he did kind of smile. It was a slight, tentative kind of smile, like smiling wasn't something he was all that used to and was still just trying it out.

“It... is rare to meet another dancer under 6'0,” Link admitted, unashamed. He closed his book, now, bringing the slim volume to rest primly against his hips.

“We could start a club,” Allen said.

“Perhaps a worker's union.”

“Protecting the workplace rights of short-statured dancers everywhere? I like it.”

“A truly noble endeavour,” Link agreed. A warm undercurrent slipped into his tone, like he was thawing out. That was good, that warmth. Allen turned towards the barre and gripped it with both hands, rolling his neck and shoulders into a quick stretch while he spoke.

“So, how are you finding this country?”

“I've only been here a day,” Link said. “I'd rather not make my judgements so hastily.”

“Only a day? Really? You must be jetlagged.”

“Well...” Link stalled, looking torn. He seemed to take an inordinate amount of time to find his response. “A _little,_ yes.”

“You don't have to put a brave face on for me,” Allen said, half-kind, half-teasing. Link's answering smile was just this side of apologetic.

“Am I really so transparent?”

“You said it, not me,” Allen returned slyly. “Alright, alright. Here's another question. What do you think of us?”

Link blinked.

“I... excuse me?”

“Our company,” Allen elaborated. He raised one hand in an _arabesque_ position, paused to admire himself in the mirror, then lowered it back down to rest. “Cross, Neah. Our ballets. I mean, you did accept the offer to perform at our gala, You must have some opinion on our corps.”

_And on me._

Link's expression creased into a frown. Frowning seemed to come to him more naturally than smiling did, and he wore his frown with a grace and ease that Allen could only describe as artful; his frown suited his severe features as neatly and seamlessly as a well-fitted suit.

“I've seen a number of ballets staged and directed by Messrs. Cross and Campbell,” Link started cautiously. He seemed to be selecting his words with great care, brow furrowed in consternation. “There's no denying their choreographic skill, of course, though their productions aren't always... to my specific tastes.”

Allen turned around.

“Not to your tastes?”

“Well,” Link said, lost for words. He looked a little embarrassed, cheeks growing a little flushed as he struggled to articulate his thoughts. “They're, ah. Really very _modern,_ aren't they?”

This, Allen knew, wasn't a compliment.

“Our mission... is to inject new life into the classics,” he said slowly, still smiling even though he didn't really feel like it at all. “Bring innovation and evolution to the forefront of ballet. So, if that's modern, then yes. Yes, we're very _modern_.”

“And there's nothing wrong with... all _that_ , innovation and evolution. In moderation.” Link looked down at his hands, feigning interest in the jacket of the dusty hardback book he was still holding in one hand. When he looked up again, though, his eyes were scary-bright — staring Allen down with that same dinstinct, decisive intensity. “You know, I happened to see your company's staging of Swan Lake a year and a half ago. I scarcely recognized it. I thought it was a pity, the sheer disregard that was shown for tradition.”

_Disregard?_

Allen's posture went rigid. His smile hardened.

“Funny,” he said. “I saw _your_ company's staging of Swan Lake a handful of months ago. I was shocked by how... _conventional_ it was.” He affected a laugh, the bitter and the sweet. “You know, all these old ballets have been danced to death — you've got to take some liberties with them if you want to be memorable at all.”

"We... simply prefer not to tamper with the classics," Link said, very slowly. His eyes and mouth were placid enough, but there was a stray twitch in his jaw. Allen had _irked_ him. There was some petty pleasure to be taken in that, getting under Link's skin.

"That's your right, of course,” Allen said. “But me? I don't think there's anything wrong with refurbishing a relic."

"One needn't _refurbish_ a masterpiece,” Link huffed.

"Even masterpieces can age poorly,” Allen argued. “Come on, Link. There's no way you actually like those boring old pantomime sequences. Wouldn't you rather not have to dance them?”

Link went silent for a beat. He blinked, once, eyes wide with genuine surprise. Like Allen had said something slightly unexpected.

“Well,” he finally said. “My preferences don't really matter, in the end.”

“Of course they matter,” Allen said. “You're an artist.”

“An artist?” Link's eyes became narrow, black and hard as enamel on a cafeteria tray. “Where on Earth did you get _that_ idea?”

“Where did I—”

Allen stopped short, clipping off into an astonished silence. Was it really such a radical notion to Link that he ought to have a say in the choreography he danced? He thought about what Lenalee had said about European dancers— _drilled like soldiers._ Thought about what he knew, personally, about Howard Link and his style of dancing. Technically flawless, pristine, a perfect embodiment of purity and control— but his stage presence was icy, detached. Unemotional.

Allen opened his mouth to ask another question, he wasn't quite sure what — but before the words could leave him, he was distracted by the sound of Lenalee's voice echoing through the studio.

“— _kill you to give me a call every now and then?”_

Link's eyes slipped from Allen's face to an indeterminate spot over his shoulder. Allen turned around. Lenalee's fist had connected to Kanda's shoulder in a playful punch, face drawn into a pout even though her eyes were bright with pleasure. Yuu Kanda himself, made immediately recognizable by the fall of his long, black hair, was hovering in the doorway, rubbing the back of his neck a little awkwardly.

Allen had seen Kanda before, seen him in the same ways he'd seen Link: in magazines, online photographs, and from the audience of crowded theaters. Up close, his whole jagged, slapdash grace was almost uncomfortably palpable.

Unlike Link, who blended in easily with his natural, measured poise, there was something sharp and predatory about Kanda. Maybe it was the contrast between his pale skin and dark hair, a disparity that left him starkly visible among the dusty gray-white-brown of the rehearsal studio. He was tall, too. Taller than Link and Allen, and built broad. Powerful. Handsome, too, of course. But his was a dangerous kind of a beauty. Best observed at a distance, like some rare and exotic tiger.

“Yuu Kanda, huh,” Allen said, more to himself than anything. From across the room, he could see the blue-black outline of Kanda's tattoos beneath the thin, slightly stretched material of his white shirt. Then, he looked back at Link. Prim, pristine Link, covered from neck to ankle in his black practice gear. “Have you two worked together?”

“No, we most certainly have _not_ ,” Link said, very quickly. “Frankly, I'd hoped we never would.”

“I suppose that's fair,” Allen said. Then, a little lower. “I've heard he's, you know, what you'd call a wild child. Has a temper.”

“That, and a truly lamentable overabundance of ego,” Link said. There was something heavy in his voice. Curiously so. His dark eyes, hawklike eyes flitted between Kanda and Allen rapidly, mouth drawing up tight as though he'd tasted something incredibly sour. “What a waste of... a waste of _talent_.”

Allen glanced back again. Lenalee had disappeared, maybe to get some more tea, and Kanda was silently making his way towards the back of the room. Seizing her chance, a younger dancer was walking up to Kanda very quickly, her eyes shining. She stopped right in front of Kanda. Her hands were clasped very tight, shoulders draw together, giddy, awestruck. Allen couldn't quite make out what she was saying to him, but it seemed to be absolutely glowing. Kanda said something short and brushed past her.

“Well, there you have it,” Allen said flatly. Link clicked his tongue in displeasure.

Kanda backed himself up against the barre, shoulders drawn high. He shimmied around in the pockets of the sweater around his waist, pulling out a battered pack of Newport cigarettes. He stuck one between his teeth, hands fumbling restlessly with a lighter that refused to flare up.

“Unbelievable,” Link muttered, and then, before Allen could stop him, he was marching across the room in Kanda's direction.

_Ah, fuck._

Allen edged a little closer to the both of them, half concerned, half bleakly entertained.

“You can't smoke in here,” Link said as he came top stop in front of Kanda, his voice clear and crisp. Link's expression had settled into a glacial hauteur. This was lofty poise of a _danseur noble,_ that aristocratic elegance for which Link was both loved and loathed.

Kanda glanced up from his lighter. For a moment, he simply stood and stared, cigarette still dangling over a full lower lip as he drank Link in. Then, his eyes narrowed. His mouth curled into something hard and mean, cigarette twisting with the motion.

Strangely, there seemed to be something intensely personal about Kanda's hostility. Definitely odd, Allen thought, considering the fact that he and Link had apparently never worked on the same staff.

“Ease off, shortcake,” Kanda bit back, rough. The way he was talking around the shape of his cigarette, it almost reminded Allen of Cross. Kanda's eyes jumped back down to his lighter, which finally sputtered to life with a final flick, offering a weak spark. Ignoring Link's expression of outrage, he drew it forwards to light the end of his cigarette.

“Put that out, or take it outside,” Link said, quite firmly now, disdain written in his brow. He crossed his arms over his chest very tightly, chin high. “This is our rehearsal space.”

Kanda's expression was dead flat.

“Tch. Must be uncomfortable, dancing with that stick up your ass.”

Kanda pulled his cigarette out of his mouth, blowing a long stream of smoke directly into Link's face. Link's icy masked cracked. His eyebrows leapt up, mouth tightening into an unpleasant, harsh line. For the first time, he looked genuinely angry. Allen winced.

Glancing around, a few of the younger dancers had turned their heads to gawk at them. Some of the older, wiser dancers, sensing trouble, were nervously filing out of the room.

“You're a guest here,” Link hissed, low. “Show some respect.”

Kanda shook his pack of cigarettes with one hand.

“Shit, look, if I give you one, will you get off my back?”

Link's eyes were dark and shiny and hard, like stones at the edge of a riverbed.

“I'm afraid I must decline. I actually value my health, you know.”

“Tch.” Kanda took another long, indulgent drag of his cigarette, the cant of his lean body somehow predatory. “And here I thought everyone smoked in Europe.”

“Not me,” Link said, curt. As quickly as it had risen, Link's his dispersed, his look of cool indifference rightening itself once more. “Now, _kindly_ put that out.”

Kanda rolled his eyes, mouth twitching up into something that was part-grin, part-sneer, and full-vicious.

“What, you think you can tell me what to just because we f—”

“I'm telling you,” Link cut in, firm, _commanding_ , “that I can't dance. With the stench. Of your filthy habit.”

Kanda's sneer fell sharply. He stared at Link, and Link stared back, undaunted. The cigarette burned between them, a third party, the ashes gathering at the end crumbling down to their dance shoes.

After a long moment, Kanda shoved his Newports and lighter back into his pockets, then whipped his cigarette away from his lips with two fingers. For a second, he looked just about ready to punch Link square in the nose.

Instead, something kind of incredible happened.

Stare never wavering, Kanda dropped his cigarette down onto the polished studio floor and crushed it underneath the heel of his shoe.

There a silence. Just about every jaw in the room had dropped. Link's eyes flickered down to the floor, down at the ashes scattering beneath them.

“Thank you,” Link said. Beneath his cold, impassive tone, there was a definite undercurrent of smug. Kanda kicked the butt into the corner with a rough kick, and Link cleared his throat. “I'm going to get some air. Have this cleaned up by the time I get back.”

He turned on his heels (a dancer's grace, even here, performative, lush) and headed towards the door. Kanda stared after him, face set in anger, following his back with his eyes. Allen followed it, too. It was a little mesmerizing, the way Link's braid swung against his back.

“Like he's one to talk about filthy habits,” Kanda seethed quietly, seemingly to no one in particular. “Prissy little whore.”

The door shut, and Link was gone, and the corps dancers went hurriedly back to their business — as if pretending they hadn't been watching in the first place.

 _Bravo, Link,_ Allen thought dryly.

Allen put his head down, hands on the barre. He slid one foot across the floor. Lifted his leg. _Tendu. Degage._ Space, motion, _movement_ ; one thing changing into another. He rose up his standing leg, drawing his _releve_ high enough that it almost looked like he was dancing on pointe, and brought his other knee back in.

Kanda was an arrogant prick, yeah, and Link was a pretentious prick. Pointing his toes into the crook of his standing leg, he wondered which was worse.

When Link came back in five minutes later, the remains of Kanda's cigarette had been anxiously swept under a nearby mat by some student dancers. Lenalee was quick to slip back in as well, long and lovely.

Practice opened with a quick introduction — Neah and Cross coming in and standing at the front of the room to address the dancers. Neah delivered a welcome to the new additions to the company, sketching out a quick explanation of the rehearsal schedule while Cross took less-than-stealthy sips from a silvery hip flask.

From there on, they ran through warm-ups. Neah and Cross split up and worked the room, occasionally singling a dancer out and testing them out. Neah asked one boy to point his foot. Cross asked to see another girl perform an arabesque.

Cross beckoned both Link and Kanda to join him, and, with surprising professionalism, they listened to him intently and without argument. At the barre, Cross had them both try out a _Don Quixote_ matador stance, known as the _quiebro_ in bullfighting: feet immobile, the body twisted and extended into the curve adopted by the matador before he plants the sword. It was a dramatic pose, upper torso arched, head inclined. Kanda's crescent was less exaggerated than Link's, Allen noticed, but also more arrogant and commanding.

It was a little fascinating, really, the way each dancer could take the same steps and make them wholly his own. Like seeing the same language spoken in two separate dialects.

Allen's eyes wandered over their bodies. Through Kanda's flimsy shirt, you could see the muscles of his back straining beneath his skin. Link's legs, clad in black, seemed to control a taut, coiled strength with every motion. Beautiful. There was no other word for it. They were beautiful men, with beautiful, beautiful bodies they used to accomplish beautiful things.

And then Allen was looking away, looking back to his own place by the barre. Back to the uneven, elegiac lyricism over his own trained body.

Link and Kanda were beautiful, yes, but Allen was _used_ to beauty. He was surrounded by beauty every day of his life.

Beauty alone would not be enough to hold his interest.

 

♦♢♦

 

“ _God, I—” Hands fumbling over Kanda's collar, coming away wet with champagne— the shirt would be ruined, Kanda knew, but God, he didn't fucking care. Didn't care about anything except the feeling of that soft mouth on his, tongue licking into his mouth to taste him, kissing wet and deep and dirty. “— I hate you, hate you so m—”_

_Kanda dragged his nails over Link's back hard, and Link gasped, loud, hot, right into his ear._

“ _Doesn't fucking sound like you do,” Kanda growled, and then his hands were sliding up under Link's shirt. Sliding wet over Link's toned body, up towards his chest to tease his nipples. Link cried out, breaking their kiss to bow his head against Kanda's shoulder and pant. “Shit, you're so fucking... fucking sensitive. Fucking hot for it.” He could feel the hard, hot slide of Link's erection through their clothes, needy and wanton and fucking gorgeous. ”Wanna mess you up. Dirty you up.”_

_And then, incensed, Link was fighting back. He pushed Kanda back up against the wall, tugging roughly at the front buttons of Kanda's shirt; spreading it down the middle “Shut up, shut up, just stop—”_

“ _Or what, you're gonna make me?”_

_"If I have to,” Link bit back, hard, and then he was sharing bites of another kind entirely, teeth connecting with Kanda's shoulder as he yanked down the zipper of Kanda's pants with one hand—_

“Hey, good work today, Kanda.”

Neah ghosted through the locker room, clapping Kanda on the back briefly before wandering off to accost some other dancer. Kanda ignored him resolutely, focusing instead on the tacked-down drawstring of his ballet shoes. These were an old pair of Capezios, creamy, durable leather worked down into a comfortable softness, contouring the curve of Kanda's foot with familiar ease. He yanked the criss-cross elastic upwards, sliding the right shoe off, replacing it hastily with a sock and battered black shoe. Then the left.

The Royal Canadian Ballet's studio changing rooms were like a gym, with metal lockers, long wooden benches, and a back room with gray-grilled showers. The only thing that set it apart from a gym changing room was the big cat litter-size box of rosin in the corner of the door, where the hard yellow rock sat chipped and battered amid the powder of its own ambery residue.

Kanda found he liked these studios, warm and old but bare-bones, like something made to be used. Practical. In his last studio building, back in New York, the front hall had been lined with pictures of ballet greats, costumes in glass cases, and stern portraits of Balanchine looking high-minded and pretentious and fuckin' _dead_ , like every gross white middle-aged ballet master should be. Fucking good riddance. The front foyer of this studio building was brown and empty, decorated only by clocks, pamphlets, a deserted reception desk, and the musty scent of settled wood.

Chalk that up as one positive of dancing in this fucking gala.

Chalk up working with Howard fucking Link as a negative.

Kanda tossed his Capezios into his practice bag. Feeling his ponytail slipping loose, he undid it entirely, reaffixing it into its tight pull with a fresh hair tie and a yank. Took a handful of his shirt, brought it to his nose. It was damp with sweat, and smelled like it, too. The sign of a good workout, though the scent wasn't exactly fucking appealing. He figured a fresh change of clothes would do for today— locker room showers were fine in a pinch, but he'd much rather take a bath back at his hotel.

Some of them were younger. Some of them were looking at him over their shoulders, like anything about their glances could be called _stealthy_ . Corps de ballet, coryphee, some student dancers. He thought of what the girl from the beginning of practice had said, _I'm such a huge fan._

Kanda didn't fucking want _fans_. Didn't need _fans_. Dewy eyes, blurry, starry words, those stupid, vacuous _I-don't-know-you-but-I-want-you_ looks.

He was just here to dance. Everything else was a distraction. A nuisance.

So was Howard Link, even if he _was_ a good lay.

He yanked his athletic pants off and shoved them into his bag. If glances turned to stares, that wasn't his problem. He pulled out a fresh pair of sweats, sitting down on the bench as he eased them up his sore legs. They hadn't yet gotten to rehearsing their solo expositions for the gala — that would likely start tomorrow. Instead, today's rehearsal had mostly consisted of practice exercises, Neah and Cross testing out what their new dancers were capable of and getting them acclimatized to their style of direction. A style that was, in Kanda's opinion, altogether _weird_ , but not terrible either. It was informal, at least, and that suited Kanda. The military formalism of the New York ballet scene had always pissed him off.

He heard the sound of someone padded across the tiled floor towards the lockers. He glanced up, and his thoughts immediately scattered at the sight of Allen Walker with a towel around his slim waist, skin flushed and glimmering wetly in the low lights, damp hair pushed out of his eyes, the shock of scars and tattoos equally visible against his skin.

Kanda hadn't memorized the names or faces of every dancer in The Royal Canadian Ballet, but he did remember Allen. It was hard to avoid. He thought of the way Allen had danced last week, in Giselle — and something knotted up in Kanda's stomach. It was a pleasant-unpleasant, too-hot sensation.

Coming from the other end of the room, Allen didn't seem to notice Kanda, fiddling with his locker to pull out a sports bag. He pulled his clothes out, and removed his towel. Kanda looked away, focusing on pulling a shirt over his head.

All of a sudden, he felt a little dizzy at being this close to Allen's long flat body, milky skin and lean muscles. That dizziness pissed him off. Made him angry. He slammed his locker door shut, straightening up aggressively.

A mistake, apparently. Allen Walker lifted his head to look and Kanda. He'd put a pair of boxers on, and was now in the process of doing the fly up on a pair of stone washed jeans.

“Oh,” Allen blinked, a spark of recognition igniting. Gray eyes. Who'd have fuckin' guessed it. Allen smiled, then, a let-you-down-easy smile Kanda instantly disliked. “Oh! You're Yuu Kanda, aren't you?”

“Yeah,” Kanda said, short. He shoved his shirt into his duffel.

“I didn't have the chance to introduce myself before practice,” Allen said, and his smile widened, bright and earnest and as natural as plastic, a smile that was everything Kanda wasn't. “I'm—”

“Allen Walker, yeah,” Kanda cut in. Then, impulsively, “I saw you in _Giselle_ last week.”

“So I heard from Lenalee. Gave me a shock.” Allen's tone was pleasant enough, though there was a strange cautiousness to it. “Did you... enjoy it?”

Enjoy it?

Hoping he wouldn't go red in the face, Kanda suddenly felt desperate to do something with his hands. He made a grab for his plastic water bottle, feeling stupid and uncomfortable and more pissed off with every second.

“It was weird,” he said testily. Allen didn't blink.

“Good weird or bad weird?”

Kanda took a quick, janky sip from his water bottle, glowering at Allen as he did. Allen looked taken-aback, but not altogether surprised, somehow.

“Does— does it matter?” Kanda stumbled to say, voice coming out harsh. He lowered his water bottle, twisted the cap, then stowed it back into his bag roughly. “Weird-weird, alright?”

Allen's thin, light eyebrows creased into the slightest of frowns.

“So you didn't enjoy it.”

“I didn't say that,” Kanda muttered, tugging at the zipper of his duffel, getting frustrated when it wouldn't cooperate. Allen still hadn't put a shirt on. He looked kind of stupid, standing in just his jeans without socks or shoes or a shirt. “Jesus fucking Christ.”

“If you didn't, you can just say so,” Allen continued. “We're both professionals here, you don't need to be afraid of hurting my feelings.” He finally reached for his shirt, then, a loose black v-neck that dipped down to expose his collarbones, too-big for his skinny, boyish frame. “Link was certainly forthcoming with his opinions.”

Kanda snorted.

“Link's a prick.”

 _"You're_ a prick,” Allen returned. Then, before Kanda could turn around and slam dunk his twink ass into the nearest trash can, he said, “And yeah, I guess I'm being a prick too. And that's not what I want. Look, you might not like us or our way of doing things, but let's try and get along for the duration of these rehearsals, okay? I think we'll all just be miserable otherwise."

There was something incongruous and ill-fitting about Allen, like performing a dance to the wrong music, or standing barefoot in a studio locker room. Kanda spied a glance at Allen's face. A stray drop of water was slowly tracking down from his wet bangs, sliding across his temples, cheeks, and neck until disappearing under the loose collar of Allen's shirt. It set Kanda's teeth on edge. Everything about Allen set Kanda's teeth on edge.

“Screw you,” Kanda blurted, blunt. He snatched his bag up and stood to his full height, taller than Allen, imposing. “I'm not here to— to fucking bat my eyes and make fucking friends. I'm here to dance. You shut the hell up and do your job, and maybe _then_ we won't end up fucking miserable.”

Allen bristled, finally, and God that was rewarding. Allen's anger wasn't like Link's, either, cold and prissy and indignant, but rather, there was an earthy toughness to it. Allen banged his fist against his locker, once, then took a few steps closer to Kanda, expression settling into something hard and unhappy.

“You think you're _such_ hot shit, don't you—”

And then he was too close, angry, clothes sticking all wrong to his slick body, still paradoxically not wearing any shoes. Kanda found himself backing up towards the door, scowling as he edged away. Something was lurching in his stomach, and he wasn't sure what it was, but he did know he had to get away.

“Oh, fucking bite me, why don't you,” he all but snarled, and he swung the locker room door open, stepped through, and shut it with a slam. He felt a little calmer then, with this barrier between him and Allen Walker.

 _Fuck him,_ Kanda thought explosively, stalking through the hallways and back towards the foyer, big and empty and blessedly silent. His footsteps echoed up into the rafters and down the halls, musically acoustic.

He pushed outside, meeting the bite of the autumn air— it was a little cooler here, north of New York, but Kanda found he didn't mind all that much. He ran hot by nature. Body wound tight, muscles sore, he navigated his way back to the parking lot and the blue rental car he had for the month. Climbed in. Keys in the ignition. Drove back to his hotel, hitting the radio in his frustration when it tried to puncture his foul mood with a long, lovely stripe of violin.

Allen Walker and his vapid, empty smiles. Fuck that. Fuck him.

Kanda gripped the wheel, gritted his teeth.

A prick, sure, and about as genuine as a marionette, but God. _God_.

The way he fucking _moved._

Not as rigorously trained as Link, obviously, not so infuriatingly perfect, but warm and light. Allen's style was — it was lighter-than-air, dizzy with wonder, with passion, with the total becoming of his role.

He'd moved, and when he'd moved, he'd moved Kanda, and Kanda would never forgive him for that.

Park the car. Walk to the door, push inside, take the elevator to his room. Lights on, bag on the table, head to the bathroom and yank the handle, showerhead sputtering to life.

Tomorrow, he'd start working on his gala solo. Request a separate studio room to rehearse in — like they'd dare fucking refuse their goddamned showpiece star anything. And he'd dance and sweat and suffer and he'd be fuckin' fantastic. He'd give Allen Walker and Howard fucking Link with something to gape at.

And that was that.

 

♦♢♦

 

Back in Denmark, Link had been coached on carriage and comportment — not just in dance, but also in life. The rules at the studio school were quite clear: no T-shirts, no slumping, no cursing, and no street food. The student dancers were reminded, time after time, that their training and profession set them apart; dancers did not look like the rest.

 _Ballet_ , Link's first teacher had told him, grasping the barre with wispy, gnarled hands, _is not career, is vocation. Even offstage, you still perform. We do not dance ballet, Howard; we live it._

Link still wasn't entirely sure what that meant, _living ballet,_ but he could certainly follow rules. So he wore expensive clothes, drank expensive tea, and carried himself in life with the same control and precision he brought to the dance: staging himself as a self-made elite, a noble creature in an ignoble world.

This was something Kanda Yuu would never understand.

He woke up at 5:00 AM and dressed himself — black pants, blue shirt, black blazer — then packed his bag for rehearsal. Plain black Capezios, athletic pants, a spare shirt, water, legwarmers. He spent the next half hour stretching, gripping the edge of the hotel vanity like a makeshift barre. _Ronde de jambe, ronde de jambe en l'air, tendu._ Just something to loosen himself up, nothing more— it'd be a shame to sweat through his clothes for the day.

Link put his shoes on (Testoni leather brogues), grabbed his bag, and headed out to the car. He still had well over an hour until rehearsals were set to begin, and he was determined to spend his time searching for the best, most lavish bakery this city could offer him. He could hardly stomach hotel buffets.

Some aimless driving and fumbling with his phone led him to an Italian-styled _paticceria_ smelling deeply of honey, flour, and fresh-baked bread. He bought himself a box of blackberry danishes, eating them in the car as he mulled over the day's itinerary.

They were almost certainly beginning individual rehearsals today, which meant Neah and Cross had finalized their gala's programme. It would certainly be interesting, seeing which dancers had been allotted which pieces of choreography— would they give Kanda a solo, or take the risk of pairing him with a ballerina for a _pas de deux_? And what of Allen Walker?

He drove to the studio and went inside. The empty foyer suited his mood, grand and silent. It was like a stage, in a sense, big and brown and creaky, and Link was surely the most interesting thing there.

 _Everything in this city,_ Link thought, _seems to be falling into disrepair. Disuse._ Still, he couldn't find it in himself to disdain this. He often thought the same thing about Copenhagen, and it was for this same reason that he liked Copenhagen. He liked old things. Things with a history.

He hauled his bag through the foyer, went up the stairs, down the hall, and into the gray-grilled changing room. Empty as well. Link checked his watch. He was 45 minutes early.

Just as well. He could get a good warm-up in before rehearsal even had a chance to begin. He stripped himself of his dayclothes and changed into his athletic dance gear, wrapping his feet and toes before sliding into his black leather dance flats.

The relationship between a ballet dancer and their shoes was a strangely intimate one. A ballerina's pointe shoes, for example, were semi-mystical conduits of her power, allowing her to lengthen her line and surge up towards the heavens. A man's ballet shoes were extensions of his body, soft and speedy; a second skin, the skin with which one conquered the stages of the world.

Link's first pair of ballet shoes were thin and cream-coloured — canvas, not leather, definitely child-sized. Nothing special, all things considered, but he'd marvelled at them as a symbol of his new special status. Dancers are not like the rest. When he first joined The Royal Danish Ballet as a soloist, the Director himself had gifted Link a pair of custom-sized, split-soled leather shoes. These Link kept in a small box back at home, covered in a red satin cloth. They were his pride.

He flexed his toes against the fabric of his shoe, brought it down off the bench.

He lifted one leg, pointed it, bringing it in and out from his knee very quickly: a flawless _petit battement._

This was his pride. His only pride.

Rosin powder, a sip of water, and he was heading back through the hallway and stepping into Studio A.

A handful of dancers had already arrived. Some were milling around by the barre, taking tiny sips of coffee from enormous paper cups. Some were sitting cross-legged on the floor, hacking at new point shoes with Stanley knives, removing the soft insoles, darning the ends, adjusting the baby pink ribbons and elastic straps where they'd fallen or snagged loose— pointe shoes were fussy, demanding idols.

At the far end of the room, Kanda was lined up against the barre, back turned to Link as he studied his own image in the reflection with relentless scrutiny. _Fondu en arabesque, plie, petite batterie._ Only his petite batterie was nothing like Link's. While he was dancing, Kanda kept his arms held taut, coiled, following the motion of the body. In the Danish style, the arms were meant to be kept perfectly relaxed, always languid and at ease at one's sides.

This detail, the placing of Kanda's arms, stood out to Link. Moreover, it bothered him. In his head, he knew what Kanda was doing wasn't technically incorrect— in fact, it was simply the proof of his American schooling — but all the same, it struck him as distinctly _wrong_.

With one hand on the barre, Kanda twisted and turned, the muscles of his broad back prominent, a faint sheen of sweat on the back of his neck. This detail struck Link too, as offensive. Unnerving.

 _I've had you._ The thought came to Link with a surprising darkness. It surged up in him, shadow-black, fervent, almost possessive. _I've seen you. Touched you. Had you._

_Not so hostile, were you, when I had my hand around your cock—_

Kanda turned his head. Blue eyes, sharp, lanced across the room until they pierced Link head-on. Link shifted, cleared his throat, and pulled his own eyes away.

These were not the thoughts he wanted to take with him into rehearsal.

He positioned himself at the barre, ignoring Kanda, and started his own warm-up. This was a Danish style barre routine; arms relaxed, exercises focusing on the legs and calves. None of the sustained, low _fondu_ s and _plies_ that were typical of Russian and American dancing, but rather something fluid and fast.

_Eins zwei drei. Eins zwei drei._

He could hear Director Leverrier's voice in his mind, smooth and low, _Et to tre. Ja, ja, Link, godt._

This was a happy memory. In his mind, Link tucked it away into another box, under another red satin cloth.

The Director has promised to call him sometime after his arrival in Montreal. Perhaps the call would come today. Perhaps it would come tomorrow.

Then, Link's eyes flashed up and caught sight of Kanda in the reflection of the mirrored wall. He realized, then, that Kanda hadn't resumed his own warm-up. Worse — Kanda was just standing his back against the barre, eyes still intensely trained on Link.

“It's like you're dancing with a fucking straightjacket on,” Kanda said when Link's eyes met his in the mirror. His voice was too loud. Too sudden, like he'd spoken by accident. And maybe he had. Kanda yanked his gaze away, then, face settling into a defensive scowl.

Link relaxed against the barre and brought both his feet down to touch the ground.

“I'm accustomed to it,” he said, careful. “I was trained to dance like this.”

“Hm.”

Kanda touched the barre with one hand and then, curiously, attempted a _petit battement_ in the Danish style. It didn't look very good. He was trying to keep his arms relaxed, but the way he was doing it, they just looked limp, like overcooked noodles.

Link let out a little cough, trying not to smirk, not to chuckle.

“Perhaps with continued practice—” Link said patiently, and then he cut himself off with a cough, trying not to smirk. Or laugh. Kanda coloured angrily either way, scowl intensifying into an expression of self-righteous fury — or maybe embarrassment.

“Fuck off,” he said roughly. He turned back to the barre and started his warm-up again. Link was just turning back to his own spot at the barre when he heard, “Don't fucking patronize me.”

“That was never my intention,” Link lied.

Kanda answered with a disbelieving snort, and silence fell between them. It was a frigid kind of silence, filled with the tense, mute energy of dance.

Kanda lifted his legs in a first position arabesque, and Link did the same, determined to be smoother, cleaner, _better_.

_Eis zwei drei._

There was the sound of the studio door creaking open. Link glanced back sharply, concentration thrown.

Allen Walker slipped inside, white hair reddish at the roots, stepping slyly, aristocratically. Slim as a ballerina, pale as a spectre, eyes like a liar— but the kind of liar one could all too easily grow to like. He was lovely, too, in his own way, lovely even despite the surprising marr of scars and tattoos. Or perhaps they contributed to his charm, somehow. They gave him a realness.

Kanda made a sound, a scowl of a sigh, and kept practicing. Link should've turned back to his barre and continued his warm-up, but he didn't, staring for a moment longer. A mistake. Walker eyes jumped to Link and held. It made Link feel a little awkward — especially as they hadn't parted on the friendliest of terms yesterday. He tore his own gaze away hastily, but it was too late, Allen was gliding forwards to take his place at the barre right next to Link.

“Good morning,” Walker said, a little too bright, a little too sunny. Link couldn't really buy it, especially not when Walker's eyes had that wary, defensive sheen.

“Good morning,” he returned primly, making a feeble attempt to drag his eyes back to meet Allen's. He'd been taught that eye contact was only polite, but all the same, trying to look at Allen head-on felt immeasurably difficult.

There was a short pause, in which it felt sort of like Allen was waiting for Link to speak. But Link couldn't think of anything to say. He let out a cough, distracting himself with another quick set. Allen touched the barre very lightly, pointed his body upwards on a high _releve_.

“Warm outside,” Walker finally offered.

“Very warm,” Link agreed blandly, who had in truth found the morning air to be quite cool.

From somewhere behind them, at his opposite barre, Link thought he could hear Kanda laugh again. It made him want to kick him.

This wouldn't do, Link thought. Spending his entire month like this, locked in a bitter stalemate with his peers, only trading outright hostility for passive aggressive. He was representing his company, wasn't he? As such, he had the responsibility to make more of an effort.

“I'd like to apologize,” Link said abruptly, swallowing his pride. “I spoke out of turn yesterday. I didn't mean to insult you. I truly believe this company puts on wonderful productions.”

Walker lifted his leg — a high, delicate pose, somewhat feminine — pausing visibly as he took Link's words in. Link released the barre, turning to face Walker.

“I'm sorry too,” Walker finally said, lowering his leg. He looked at Link. The defensive look had fallen, a fortress seized. “I was lying when I said your production of Swan Lake was unmemorable. Actually, I kind of thought you were amazing.” Then, he smiled, wicked and playful. “I'm also sorry for calling you a prick.”

“A what?” Link so wasn't great with English slang.

“Prick means asshole,” Walker explained. Link blinked. He knew that one. Walker's smile widened like he was trying not to laugh. “But I only ever said it in my head. I promise.”

Link frowned, considered it, then capitulated.

“I suppose that's only fair,” he sighed. “I was being... being something of a _prick_.”

Walker laughed for real now, warm and wonderful.

“Oh, how _very_ understanding of you.”

“I try to be, whenever possible,” Link said solemnly, and Walker laughed again.

“Naturally.” Walker's eyes glinted, grin turning catlike. “Hey, wanna partner me?”

Link stared.

“Excuse me?”

“It's more interesting than barre exercises, wouldn't you say?” Walker leaned forwards. Link leaned back.

“I never get to practice partnering leaps, either. Consider it your way of making it up to me.”

“Partnering leaps?” Link repeated. “As in — leaping, ah. Into my arms?”

“I'm light enough, I promise,” Allen assured. Link coughed. His face felt hot.

Allen's weight _really_ hadn't been his first concern.

They ended up in the middle of the room, away from the barre, ensuring they'd have enough room for... whatever Allen wanted to attempt. Some of the younger ballerinas' eyes fell on them. It was slightly embarrassing, somehow — Link wasn't sure why. It wasn't like he'd had trouble dancing in front of crowds in the past. Perhaps it was because he was dancing with another man, or because he was dancing with Allen Walker. They watched the both of them as they sewed up their pointe shoes, intent, as if this was an important classroom demonstration. And maybe it was, for them.

Link supported Walker's leg over his shoulder, affecting a _grand ronde de jambe_ as he promenaded around, holding Walker's hand and forcing the arch of his back. The combined heat of their intertwined hands was distractingly warm.

“Hold my waist,” Walker said, bringing his long, lean legs back down to the ground.

Link was glad to pass his blush off as a flush of exertion.

“What—”

“Shh, just do it.”

Walker pulled Link's hands over his hips. Link held them there, hesitating only at first before pressing down firm. There really shouldn't be any reason for him to be so flustered, he'd done this a thousand times—

Well. With ballerinas.

Walker plied. Link held him. Walker's shirt rode up a little under Link's touch, and Link could feel the sweet revelation of his breathing, steady and controlled. He gripped Allen tighter, anticipating the leap.

Allen jumped. He was much too late on the jump, though — a beginner's mistake. The force of Link's hands moved up Allen's torso, likely rubbing his ribs raw. Link winced internally.

“If you want to stop...”

It was only to be expected that Allen might not have this particular technique down. Allen might have the physique of a ballerina, but he was still definitely a man — and men hardly ever practiced these sorts of moves.

Allen shook his head, already repositioning his feet for another _plie_.

“Let's do it again.”

They tried again. It went a little better — but again, Allen was too late, only jumping as he felt Link begin to lift, leaving Link unsteady and Allen at a feeble elevation.

“Don't wait to feel me lift,” Link said, leaning in to say it against Allen's ear, impatient. Then, with a sigh, “You need to trust me. _Trust_ that I will catch you. Trust, and then jump, yes?”

Allen didn't move for a moment. Link returned his hands to Allen's waist, and then, after a moment's deliberation, gave him a reassuring squeeze.

“Okay,” Allen said.

Allen plied. Low. _Beautiful_ , Link registered hazily, hands following that pale boy down. _He's beautiful._

And then Allen was jumping blindly into the air, nearly knocking the force out of Link with the coiled power of his leap. Link began his lift halfway up, propelling him further into the air, up high, lovely. He pivoted Allen, and Allen threw his head back, triumphant, arms held in a perfect fifth position over his head.

Something familiar tugged in Link's chest. It was pride, but curiously, it wasn't for himself. He lowered Allen back to the ground gently.

As Allen touched back down, Link realized the room had gone dead quiet. Then, he realized that now every set of eyes in the room was on them.

Finding Kanda's face among the mirrors and the light, Link realized he was no exception.

There was something fierce and angry in Kanda's eyes as he watched Link and Allen dance. His hands were drawn into tight fists, shoulders rising into a tense line.

It made Link feel powerful.

“Bravo, Walker,” Link said. He offered Allen a smile; a small, self-satisfied thing that was actually meant for Kanda. Allen smiled back breathlessly, none the wiser.

“Walker... sounds so terribly formal,” he said, bizarre and too bright, like someone with a high fever. “Just call me Allen.”

“If that's what you want,” Link said, the role of the prince returning to him with surprising ease, “then it would be my pleasure.”

Across from them, Kanda turned away sharply. All the same, Link could tell he was fuming.

_Good._

 

♦♢♦

 

 

Rehearsal. Shower. Lockers. A familiar routine, but one Allen relished all the same. There was a bone-deep ache in his legs, and his knees were sore from sticking too many landings, but it was a sweet kind of pain, the kind you sweat and fight and work for. As he pulled a shirt down over his damp head, he could still feel a bright blaze of energy — a second wind — trawling through his belly. It was warm and soft, candlelike.

The day's rehearsal had gone well, with Cross and Neah giving up the stupid classroom exercises and finally commencing individual rehearsal. They'd each been assigned their gala performances — notably, solos for Link and Allen, a _pas de deux_ for Lenalee and Kanda, and another for Marie and Miranda.

All in all, his first session (coached by Neah) had been a decided success. At least, Neah seemed satisfied. They'd workshopped the first minute or so of the variation, Allen testing out the steps as Neah observed. Neah made for an odd director. He was sometimes content to watch quietly, sometimes asking you to perform a certain step sequence over and over as he stewed in silence, stare intent. Just as soon, his switch would be flipped, and he'd be hitting you with critiques faster than you could possibly absorb them.

He was thinking about his morning's warm-up with Link. He couldn't get it out of his head — Link's hands on his waist. The low, mellifluous tone of Link's voice, his breath against Allen's ear. A potent, heady thing, Link's voice, especially with that fucking _accent_.

He put on his clothes, put on his shoes, and grabbed a towel, still scrubbing at his damp hair as he began trudging out of the lockers with his bag.

“How're you feeling about your gala assignment?”

“I'm excited, actually,” she said. Her hair was damp, curling pleasantly around her neck and ears. She'd changed out of her tights and into a long, conquettish blue dress, paired to kitschy effect with a cable knit sweater and a big gold scarf. “I haven't danced with Kanda since we were in school.”

She and Kanda had been assigned a pas de deux from _Carmen —_ a romantically, sexually charged duet with tons of sharp, diamantine turns for Lenalee and slow, controlled prowling for Kanda. This assignment was was more or less a perfect fit for Kanda, a dance filled to the brim with broody, moody aggression and possession — complete with a cigarette to smoke.

 _“Carmen_ , huh. That's some pretty spicy stuff,” Allen said, lifting his brows suggestively. Lenalee nodded, intent.

“Cross started coaching us through the movements. I thought it'd be embarrassing, but honestly, it's a lot of fun. A lot of acting.”

“I'll bet,” Allen said, running through what he remembered of the choreography in his head. He tried to imagine it, Kanda yanking Lenalee into his arms, Lenalee sinking down between his strong legs. “So, are you, uh, feeling the flames of passion?”

“Oh my _God."_ Lenalee smacked Allen on the back, and Allen snorted. “Kanda... he's like a brother to me, God. Of course I don't— I don't actually find anything _sexy_ about dancing with him. It's— it's work. It just feels like we're working.”

“I suppose that's only natural,” Allen said. Inside, he was thinking of Link, the way Link's hands had felt on Allen's waist, his breath hot against Allen's ear. How it hadn't felt like work. Hadn't felt like rehearsal.

Twisting in Kanda's arms, gorgeous, savage Kanda— well. He didn't think that would feel much like work either.

“Enough shop talk, though,” Lenalee said. “It's getting late, and I could use dinner.”

“Then let's do dinner,” Allen answered easily. Lenalee's eyes lit up.

“That sounds lovely,” she said. She reached into the pocket of her sweater with eager fingers, fumbling for her phone. “I'll invite Lavi.”

“Assuming he's free.”

“I can't imagine any other engagements he might have on a Tuesday night.”

“I don't know, I feel like jerking off consumes a lot of his time,” Allen shrugged. “Or maybe he's putting the finishing touches on his stamp collection.”

“Lavi doesn't collect stamps,” Lenalee answered, breezy.

“Wow, you're really just going to let that jerk-off comment slide?”

“Denial is an ugly thing,” Lenalee said. Then, catching something from the corner of her eye, she glanced back down the hallway. Allen followed her gaze. Kanda was standing at the other end, duffel bag slung over one shoulder, still hot as hell even with his sweaty forehead and frizzy, messed-up ponytail. Maybe even hotter because of it. “Oh— good, we can still catch Kanda. Kanda!”

“Uh, might wanna hold your hor—”

If horses were to be held, it would not be today. Lenalee jogged down the hall to meet Kanda, reaching out to tug insistently at his sleeve.

“You'll come, won't you Kanda?”

Kanda looked very mildly baffled.

“Come _where.”_

“To dinner with us!”

“What?” Kanda recoiled, visibly irritated. “No.”

“We'll go to The Cardinal,” Lenalee said, already glossing over Kanda's refusal, lips now curved into that infectious little smile of hers. “I bet you'll like it, Kanda, it’s just like the Russian tea rooms they have back in Manhattan—”

“I said _no_.”

 _“Kanda_ ,” Lenalee admonished, tugging on Kanda's shirt with a surprisingly childlike petulance. Kanda glanced away, scowling, and Allen knew that Lenalee had won.

“I'm inviting Link," Allen said. Abruptly, maybe. "I think he should still be in the lockers, I'm gonna see if I can catch him.”

“Don't you fucking dare,” Kanda hissed, affronted. At the same time, Lenalee frowned gently.

“Invite Link?” She repeated, wary. “ _Howard_ Link?”

“Do— do you know any other Links?”

“You'd be surprised,” Lenalee hedged. “It's, um, a popular name in New York .”

Kanda put his face into his hands and groaned. Allen and Lenalee went about cheerfully ignoring him.

“Gimme five minutes,” Allen promised, taking a step back in the direction of the stairs. “Don't worry, you'll like him.”

“And if I don't?”

“Eh, Kanda looks like he'd gladly murder him for you.”

Kanda shot Allen a glare through his fingers, but didn't argue.

 

 

♦♢♦

 

They crowded around a table for five; Lavi, Lenalee, and Allen sitting with their backs against a plush red booth, Link and Kanda sitting on chairs on the other side — looking uncomfortable and downright hostile, respectively.

On The Cardinal Tea Room's green walls were gold-framed paintings of little girls, jesters, and Russian ballerinas from the Soviet era; Makarova, Ulanova, Maximova —  a lovingly framed portrait of Nureyev, his high Slavic cheekbones bitingly sharp. With his hard eyes and sulky posture, he seemed burned by the cold of the steppes. _So much like Kanda, with that scowl of his._

The room was a patchwork of colours and sounds; busy waiters wheeling noisy tea carts maneuvered around a gold centerpiece clock, which chimed and boomed on the hour. Besides their table was a giant silver pitcher with a spigot, which Lavi explained was a _samovar_.

Allen had met Lavi a handful of times, and while Lavi was something of a handful himself, Allen had decided very early on that he was the right kind of person. A historian of dubious credentials, archivist, writer, and occasional critic, Lavi was the exact sort of Bohemian stray Lenalee was prone to adopting.

He wasn't her boyfriend, no. Lenalee had told Allen as much. But he didn't seem to _not_ be her boyfriend either. The moment they sat down, Lenalee was snuggling against Lavi's shoulders, laughing softly as he made some wisecrack only she could hear.

“Remind me, what exactly do you do?” Link questioned Lavi, raising a delicate eyebrow. A waiter in a bowtie came and brought them tea from the samovar, then disappeared once again.

Link was wearing a full three-piece suit, likely bespoke, interior glinting with blue grenadine silk. He somehow gave the impression of not being overdressed at all, despite the fact that both Allen, Lavi and Kanda were all wearing jeans. Perhaps it actually would've been stranger if Link had been wearing jeans— formalism was, paradoxically, the easiest and most natural look for Link. His ballet body was obscured but not quite hidden beneath the fine, high collar of his pin-striped shirt, and silvery cufflinks glinted at his wrists.

“Top secret,” Lavi said, all shit-eating. Lenalee rolled her eyes, smacking Lavi on the shoulder. “Alright, alright. Mainly, I work with The National Ballet Archives as a research assistant. Collecting and preserving history, all that jazz.”

“That's an honourable endeavour,” Link said, tracing the rim of his teacup.

“Sounds fucking boring,” Kanda said.

Lenalee smiled fondly, like Kanda had said something really cute and funny instead of blatantly rude. She was sitting with one leg crossed over the other, and she looked nothing short of lovely.

“Kanda doesn't have much an appreciation for the _academic_ side of things,” she confided.

“It's not that I don't care about— about preserving history or whatever,” Kanda said, shifting restlessly in his seat. “I just don't see how anyone has the damn patience for a job like that. Cooping yourself up in a fucking library all day, obsessing over some dead asshole's letters.”

“Well, there are those who study history, and those who _make_ history, right?” Allen shrugged, taking a sip of his tea. Kanda blinked, and for a brief flash, he actually looked a little appreciative.

“Right,” he said. Then, his face hardened up again. He reached over and tugged a passing waiter's shirtsleeve. “Hey, can we smoke in here?”

The waiter stared at him nervously for a long moment, looking like he really, really wanted to say no but wasn't sure how. Allen took the moment to flip his menu open. Pelmeni, pirozhki—

“What's _oladyi?_ ” Allen asked.

It was Link who answered this time.

“They're very similar to pancakes,” Link responded patiently. Allen frowned, considering this.

“Well, how are they _different_ from pancakes?”

“They're smaller and thicker,” Link replied. “Usually served with sour cream and honey.”

“That sounds good,” Allen said. Then, wistfully, as he glanced the menu over, “This all sounds good.”

“Friendly reminder that you can't order everything,” Lavi said.

“Friendly reminder that you can kiss my ass.”

Allen stuck his tongue out, which was totally super mature and not at all puerile or childish. Lenalee laughed. Link made a brief wheezing-coughing sound, like he was trying not to do the same.

When Kanda turned back to the group, there was a cigarette dangling between his teeth, and a very frightened-looking waiter was scuttling back to the kitchen.

“Can we get some stroganoff?” He said, smacking his open pack of Newports down onto the table as he fished for his lighter.

“Another good idea,” Allen sighed down at his menu.

“I want a cheeseburger,” Lavi said.

“We're in a _Russian_ tea room,” Link pointed out.

“I'll get it with a shot of vodka, chill.”

“I've never tried borscht,” Lenalee said thoughtfully, turning her menu over and worrying at her lower lip. “Maybe I'll have that.”

“Mm. Another good idea.”

“Walker, surely you don't _actually_ intend to eat every dish offered in the menu—”

“Hey, I told you to call me Allen.”

They handed their menus back to a nearby waitress, making their orders with a great deal of interjection. Soon, a bowtied waiter was setting bowls of soup down onto their table, the stuff purpleish, hot and salty, with bits like earth floating towards the top. Several plates of steaming dumplings were quick to join, along with a plate of folded pancakes, Kanda's stroganoff, and a number of dishes accompanying— apples, jam, sour cream, a tiny pot of thickly-oozing honey. Allen's mouth watered from the tastes on display.

What started off as an organized affair quickly became something of a free-for-all, everyone stealing bits from each other's plates. Allen tried each one in succession. He'd always been a big eater, with a good taste for sweet and salty, sour and bitter, hot and cold.

“I love your accent,” Lenalee said to Link, turning her glass over in her hand— a vodka martini she'd ordered halfway through her soup. She was the only one who was drinking, but then again, she was the only one who wasn't driving that night. Lavi had chauffered her to the restaurant. “Danish, right?”

Link shifted, looking distinctly uncomfortable.

“I'm German.”

“But you dance with The Royal _Danish_ Ballet,” Lavi pointed out. Link looked down at his food.

“I moved to Denmark after the RDB offered me a position as a soloist. They're a highly prestigious company with a long, rich history, and the offer... the offer was an certainly a rare opportunity.”

“So, your native language is German?” Allen prompted him. Link nodded slowly.

“I'm comfortable with Danish as well, though.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Allen cut in, holding up one hand to silence Link. “How many languages do you speak?”

“Only three,” Link said. He looked somewhat abashed. “Well. Four, if you count some rudimentary Dutch. And some basic French. But not very much.”

Even Kanda straightened up in his seat at that. He blinked hard at Link, looking genuinely surprised and possibly even impressed— then, remembering himself, he scowled again and slumped back against his chair moodily.

“Jesus Christ,” Allen said. Lavi whistled.

Lenalee turned in her seat and glanced around at the group, “You guys know any other languages?”

“Russian, but only the swears,” Kanda said.

“Quebec French, but only the swears,” Allen said.

“I speak Spanish,” Lavi said. There was an expectant pause. “Okay, _mostly_ the swears.”

“I'm not sure how you do it,” Lenalee sighed. She slumped back against her seat, brushing her dark fringe out of her eyes. Link's ears went pink.

“It's simply a matter of having a time and place to practice,” he answered guardedly. He squirmed a little in his seat, a tiny motion of discomfort Allen just barely recognized. He pulled his braid over his shoulder and began fussing with the ends fastidiously.

“How do you say _plate_ in German?” Lavi asked, tapping the edge of his near-empty ceramic plate with one finger.

“It's— it's _Teller_ , but I'd rather—”

“How do you say _ballet_?” Lenalee jumped in.

“It's more or less the same,” Link answered, now somewhat red in the face. “ _Ballett_. However, I'd really rather not—”

“How do you say _champagne?”_

Link stopped short. His hands fell from his braid. He lifted his chin and turned, eyes finding Kanda's. Again, there was something strangely personal here, something intimate and meaningful and unknown to Allen. Suddenly, Allen had the sense that he was intruding, that he was getting a peek behind some curtain and seeing some truth that had never been meant for him.

Kanda's blue eyes nearly black in the low lights. The half-darkness of the tea room, once cozy, now seemed a little dangerous; animals hiding in the shadows. The smoke rising from his cigarette twisted into strange shapes, figures dancing through the air before fading out into the dim light. They reminded Allen of ghosts. Vagrant, fugitive spectres from days long dead.

“ _Champagner,”_ Link finally answered. His tone had recovered its strength, its dignified clarity. “Or _Sekt_.”

“ _Sekt_ ,” Kanda repeated, voice low and flat and undercut with a current of moodiness.

Lenalee was looking at Kanda. Lavi's eyes went narrow, mouth shut — more intuitive than he'd ever let on.

There was a beat of silence, just a beat, but it was one beat too long.

Allen slammed his hand down on the table, forcing a smile.

“Who wants dessert?”

 

♦♢♦

 

Lavi left with Lenalee giggling into his side, silly and happy and coy in that special way tipsy girls could be. Allen was a little jealous, really. Jealous of her carefree happiness. Whenever he drank, he only ever ended up thinking of unpleasant things.

Link and Kanda were quick to follow Lavi and Lena, with Link nearly leaping up from the table to pay his bill at the front. He looked distinctly nervous at the prospect of potentially being alone with Kanda with only Allen as a buffer.

Interesting, that.

Allen went up and paid alone, working through his thoughts as though they were steps in a particularly difficult dance. Kanda's narrow eyes, Link's face, flickering between anxiety and an uneasy understanding. Champagne.

Link had said they'd never worked together before. Would he lie?

Allen shoved his jacket on, then pushed out the double-doored exit of the Cardinal Tea Room. The night was murky black, the city streets glistening with the glossy damp of a recent rain. Underneath the gloomy beaming of starlight, the asphalt almost looked like water.

Allen was surprised by the sight of Kanda, standing with his back against the brown brick wall several feet away from the door. He staring ahead, out into the nothingness where water was still dripping down from the plastic awnings of closed-up street shops. He looked lost in thought, which was the real surprise, really. Allen had never thought of Kanda as the type to think. He was wearing a sharp black autumn coat, and there was a cigarette dangling from his lips. Of course there was.

“You really do smoke like a chimney,” Allen said, thinking out loud more than anything. He took a step closer to Kanda, and Kanda startled, eyes flashing in anger.

“You got a problem with that?”

“Not particularly,” Allen said airily. “Can't be any good for your lung capacity, though.”

Kanda's mouth hardened into a harsh line.

“I can keep up just fine,” he said, kinda menacing, as though Allen had just issued him a challenge. Which he hadn't, not at all.

Allen sighed, running a hand through his hair. “I know you can, but still, your health—”

Kanda was quick to shut him down. “If you're trying to play worried, don't fucking bother.”

Allen dragged his hands down to his side, feeling a hot spark of anger ignite in his belly.

“Christ, I _know_ you hate me, but do you really have to be such a—”

“I don't hate you,” Kanda said abruptly. His face was shut tight and strangely blurry. A closed window streaked with rain. He lit his cigarette, took a long, expert drag, and then exhaled it in a steady stream. He looked good while doing it, too. Frustratingly good.

“You— what?”

“Don't get me wrong,” Kanda cut in. “I sure as hell don't like you.” The fog over his expression dimmed. When he lifted his eyes to find Allen's face, his eyes were wicked sharp. They pierced Allen with the keen precision of a needlehead, pinning him like a butterfly against a corkboard. “I don't like you, but I don't— shit, do I _really_ have to fucking explain myself?”

“Well, I'd like it if you did,” Allen said, fighting to keep his tone crisp and disaffected when all he wanted to do was heat up with a blush. The full force of Kanda's attention had caught him off guard. It was overwhelming, and that frustrated Allen even more, because he was fucking _frustrated_ and didn't _want_ to be made vulnerable.

Kanda snorted. He bowed his head as he flicked ash from his cigarette, releasing Allen from his stare.

“Well, tough shit. Explaining isn't my forte.”

“Dance it out or something, then,” Allen said, flat. Kanda rolled his eyes.

“This isn't another fucking ballet.”

“Only it is,” Allen laughed. It was a hard, staccato laugh, not very friendly, but not exactly mean-spirited either. He gestured down the street in a broad, theatrical sweep, over the rainy, grey-blue streets, past the trash cans and the car exhaust. “I can see in my head. This whole scene, buried in black tulle — and then there's you.” He glanced back at Kanda, this savage, beautiful, unkind creature, mouth full of smoke. “Jet black, half-wild. Like a raven.”

_At home in the dark._

Kanda looked at Allen, but this time, it wasn't with that piercing look of his. There was a blankness here, too bewildered to be deadpan, like he either didn't understand what Allen was saying or understood too much to be properly comfortable.

“And you're a fucking loon,” he finally answered. He stuck his cigarette back in his mouth, stubborn. Allen smiled wanly.

“Or a swan.”

Kanda scowled, or maybe sighed — it was hard to tell.

“I'd hate you if I thought you were completely fucking irredeemable,” he finally said, speaking around the tight grit of his teeth before stopping short to collect himself. He took a breath, relaxing visibly, eyes glancing off of Allen and down the street. “But, as it turns out, you've got one thing going that I can respect.”

“My wit and charm?”

“Your ability.”

“Ah,” Allen said. He stopped to consider it for a moment. “So you _did_ enjoy my dancing.”

Kanda stubbed his barely-smoked cigarette out against the stone wall.

“Oh, fuck off.”

“And here I thought we were making some progress,” Allen said.

Kanda looked at Allen in the face and laughed. This laugh was definitely mean-spirited.

“Yeah, not likely.”

“Would it _really_ kill you to have a friend?”

“I've seen this ballet before,” Kanda said. He dropped the crushed remains of his cigarette down to the pavement. “The swan and the raven don't part _friends.”_

“Well, I've always been a revisionist.”

“You're a cheeky little shit, that's what,” Kanda said. Then, contemplative, “Also, a complete lunatic.”

“I'm an artist, Kanda.”

“Yeah, that's what I said. A complete lunatic.”

Allen laughed, and then — maybe it was a hallucination, maybe it was a trick of the light — Kanda cracked a small, rueful smile. It was barely a quirk of the lips, but all the same, it was just about the most beautiful smile Allen had ever seen in all his life.

A thrill ran through Allen's stomach. Hot. Electirc. Strong enough that he stopped laughing entirely. All of a sudden, the humour drained from the situation, and Allen he was just standing there, in the dark, in the silence. He stood, just looking, just watching. And Kanda was watching him too.

And Kanda's stare was clear and unafraid.

He really was beautiful, this brutal raven boy, wrapped up in rainwater, in smoke, in the earth. Black tulle. Pas de deux. Predator and prey, dancing their cautious arms-length duet.

And because this moment was beautiful, and because Allen loved it, he went ahead and ruined it.

“So, tell me. Where does Link fit into this scene?”

Kanda blinked hard. The last remaining vestiges of his smile fell off his face. Flat. Cold.

_"Excuse me?_

“I couldn't help but notice,” Allen said. “You two have... some kind of history, don't you?”

Kanda backed up, hands closing into a pair of fists.

“I don't know—  what the _fuck_ kind of assumptions you're making—”

“I'm not,” Allen cut in quickly. Whatever connection they'd established had been lost just as quickly, draining away into something black and hostile, and Allen hated himself for it. “I was just—”

“— But you can just mind your own fucking business, I don't fucking know who the _hell_ you think you are—”

Backpedalling, Allen said, “Alright, fine, don't tell me, I don't even  _care_.”

Only he did care, but he wasn't why, and Kanda clearly cared too.

“Fuck this. Fuck _you_. I'm going back to my hotel,” Kanda finally said. He zipped up his jacket, turned around, and headed back through the dark towards his car.

Allen stuck his hands in his pockets, watching him leave. A number of emotions were roiling inside him, some clear and crisply defined, some vaguer and less easily parsed. The first was neat, simple anger. And then that anger changed into something else, a more intimate bitterness. He could no longer consider Kanda a stranger, and he was regretting that fact. With that, there was grief, a muted current of self-loathing, and this _longing_ ; this odd, inexplicable urge to chase after him.

That was just Kanda, wasn't it? A fucking dick and a half, but still. There was something about him that just screamed _chase me._ Maybe it was his beat-you-black-and-make-you-like-it charisma. Maybe it the power and freedom in his dancing.

Or maybe it was just that special little smile, shared like a secret.

 

♦♢♦

 

_The taste of champagne. Kisses, bites, promises not kept. Overturned sheets, a laugh in the dark, a moment's silence, quick to be broken. Red satin; the felt cloth that keeps the good protected, the curtain that keeps old shame hidden. And this is the worst kind of shame; hot and dark, like tar, like smoke rising off a forest fire. Unchecked, this shame will blaze into guilt, into regret, into the semi-sweet madness of “What if?”_

_A goodnight, a big black sunrise, brief loves that last forever._

Wednesday and Thursday blazed by. Link danced and danced and danced, and when he wasn't dancing, he was stretching, he was reading theory, he was sleeping or eating or managing press offers. There was a peace in this in being at work. In keeping himself busy.

That was what he had promised himself, wasn't it? To work? He hold his head high, avoid all distractions? Make his company proud?

Perhaps that was an easier task said than done. Kanda was a formidable distraction, one all too willing to drag Link back into the mistakes of a past left behind.

Friday morning, cold and clear and lucid. Shower, stretch, warm-up in the hotel room, breakfast on the road. The wind outside chafed his hair, his lips, his cheeks. This city was cold. Colder than Copenhagen. He arrived at the studio a half-hour early for his scheduled rehearsal with Neah, taking the time to strip down into dance clothes in the lockers and fuss with the loosening straps of his dance shoes.

He skirted Allen's attempt to lure him into another duet, backing up into the private studio room Neah had assigned them and waiting the remaining twenty minutes in there. He sped through a Danish barre routine, loving how focus and control could erase thought so beautifully and totally.

His body cut through the air, sharp and quick, the way he'd cut with a kitchen knife. His feet obey his mind exactly, beating the air with the sure strokes of wings.

He feels his own power, clean and decisive, and knows that it is also the Director's power. That granted him some comfort.

Airy and defatigable, a Tchaikovsky serenade floated out from another room. It was a slow, elegiac piece, like a lament. Link tried to put a name to the score, or at least the ballet. _The Nutcracker? Swan Lake? The Sleeping Beauty? Jewels?_ In his current state, they all seemed the same, their choreography interchangeable, their plotlines irrelevant. Link had danced them all, and they had all felt the same. Just movements set to music. Orders to be followed.

Rehearsal lasted a total of six and a half hours with breaks, and by the end, Link was thoroughly exhausted but satisfied with his progress. Neah was... an unconventional coach, moody and vague and sometimes explosive in both his criticisms and his ecstasies, but not a bad one. He understood dance, and he understood the program. That was the best you could ask for, sometimes.

“I've been in this business a long time, Howie,” Neah would say, yellow panther eyes, big panther grin. “Trust me. I know what the fuck I'm doing.”

And he did know what he was doing, it was true. For all their eccentricities, Cross and Neah had their art down to fantastic form, and their company and repertoire were in similarly impressive shape.

 _But no one,_ Link privately thought, with the reverence and assurance of a child, _knows ballet like the Director._

There was no one else like him, no one who could do what he did. No one else who could size up a dancer so quickly and so efficiently, understanding instantaneously what they were capable of, where their limits were, and where they were needed. The first time Director Leverrier had looked at Link, his eyes had seemed to swallow him whole. They were rapacious, obsessive; the eyes of a fanatic. Suddenly, Link, a young spitshine nobody from gutter-nowhere, had felt _seen_.

 _Seen_ as if for the first time in his life.

It was Leverrier's eyes Link's sought more than any others, and when he faced a standing ovation in a packed theater, and when they threw flowers at his feet, it was still Leverrier's eyes he needed. He would be lurking, waiting behind some stage door; eyes burning through to him. He was with Link, even when he was not.

And maybe that was it, maybe that had always been it. His desire to success, to dance, was synonymous with the need to be _seen_. By somebody. Anybody.

Link dragged himself back to the locker room and took a long shower, taking the time to methodically condition and brush through his long hair. Soapy water ran over his shoulders, his back, and dripped down into drain. The suds were gathering around his feet, blue-white bubbles against pink-red flesh. The ache in his feet was near-constant, these days, the old callouses at his heel scraped dry, small toes hard as tree bark.

He'd been told by Leverrier, once, that it was noble to suffer. That it was just.

_There is no beauty without suffering._

He fought hard to believe it.

He twisted the shower handle, and the head sputtered to a stop. Missing the balmy warmth of the water, he reached for the towels he'd set aside, wrapping one around his waist and another about his neck. He pushed the stall door open, walking back into the locker room — only to see Allen Walker, clean and dry and dressed in white.

Allen turned around, away from his locker, eyes meeting Link's. They went wide.

“Oh!” Allen said. His eyes flickered away, and then returned, bouncing back and forth rapidly like a rubber ball.“I, um. I forgot my bag,” he said. He picked his bag up quickly as if to prove he wasn’t lying.

“Oh,” Link said, sounding as stupid as he felt. He could feel his face turning red. “Oh, I see.”

Very quickly, Link went to his locker, and whipped it open, reaching for his clothes. He glanced over his shoulder, once. Allen didn't move an inch, bag swinging over his skinny shoulders.

It was — it was embarrassing, somehow, the thought of changing while Allen was still in the room. But, he didn't seem to be going anywhere. Slowly, hesitantly, Link unwound the towel from the waist.

“I wanted to apologize,” Allen said suddenly, just as Link began to briskly pull his clothes on. His voice echoed through the room. His eyes were skittering all over the room. “I probably put you and Kanda in an uncomfortable position the other day, asking the two of you to do dinner with us.”

Link yanked his pants up his thighs, feeling self-conscious.

“It's quite alright,” he said, without really knowing if this was true. Then, hesitantly, “I enjoyed myself.”

That, at least, wasn't a lie. Lavi had been interesting, Lenalee was good company, and Allen —  well, Allen was nothing short of wonderful.

Hands working at the buttons of a blue shirt, Link turned in his seat to face Allen. Allen's eyes were enormous. They were shiny and silvery and enamel-bright, like Link's best tea set.

Only these eyes were more beautiful than Link's best tea set. What was more, they were set directly on Link, watching him so intently and so earnestly that Link had the sense of being devoured— of being consumed—

And then, all of a sudden, hands fumbling up with shirt, Link was struck with — with it. That feeling. The feeling of being seen.

“I know you two have a... a history,” Allen said. His smile was gentle, and he didn't pull his eyes away, not for a second. Link's hands froze. His stomach was turning itself inside out, knotting itself up. If Allen could see him, what did he see?

How much did Allen know about Link's history with Kanda?

Possibly everything, Link realized. Suddenly, he could see it, clear as day. Kanda would only be too quick to share, wouldn't he? Did he boast about it — like any other difficult conquest?

Link shut his locker very quickly, bending over to pull socks on and slip into his shoes.

“It... it was only once,” Link demurred, face hot. “And it was a long time ago.”

Alright, so it had only been last year, but Allen didn't need to know that.

“Wait, what?” Allen said. There was a long, meaningful pause. Then,“Oh! _Oh_. I didn't actually — well then.” Allen coughed. “I'm — I was just surprised. I was surprised when I found out, that's all.”

Surprised that someone like Link would tumble into bed with someone like Kanda, even for only a night?

Link laughed nervously.

“It... it was a mistake.”

“Everyone makes mistakes,” Allen said. Then, “Though I kinda have a hard time imagining you making any.”

Link let out a soft breath.

“Well. I'm only human, I'm afraid.”

“I'm starting to see that now,” Allen said, eyes glittering with humour.

“Sorry to disappoint,” Link said gravely.

Allen blinked, once, twice. Then, he laughed. It was a high, infectious laugh. Somehow, it helped ease the knot of unease that had been twisting and turning inside Link's belly.

“Disappoint?” Allen repeated, grinning. “No way. I think I'd be more disappointed if you _were_ perfect.”

“I suppose perfection can be intimidating,” Link said cautiously. Allen snorted, running a hand through his hair.

“No, it's just boring.

Link frowned, “That's a very odd position for a ballet dancer.”

“Or just a very _modern_ one.”

“Not this again,” Link muttered, and then Allen was laughing again, and everything seemed okay. He pulled his wet hair over his shoulder and started to braid it, feeling better by miles. “You don't find me boring, then?”

“Not at all,” Allen grinned.

“That's... well.” Link looked away. Something like happiness was blooming at the center of his chest, warm and slow. “I'm glad to hear it. Thank you.”

“So gracious,” Allen said lightly. “What a prince.” Then, softer, “A raven, a swan, and a prince. Huh.”

“Excuse me?”

“Just rambling.” He took a step closer, one eyebrow raised. “And what about me? You don't find me too boring?”

“Boring? Certainly not.” Link looped one strand over the other, fingers working methodically at the familiar task. “Incomprehensible at times, certainly. But never boring.”

“You know, _incomprehensible_ just sounds like a polite word for _crazy,_ ” Allen said. Link rolled his eyes, scoffing fondly.

“Is that what you consider yourself? Crazy?”

“Sometimes,” Allen said. His smile was bright, but it also had an enigmatic quality to it, like he was taunting a secret. “It comes and goes. I'll go through — through days of sustained clarity, and then... well.” His smile slipped. His eyes took on a faraway look. “Something punctures right through it, like a needle bursting a balloon.” There was a beat. Link let go of his braid, studying Allen's expression very carefully — and the smile returned, sunny and charming and now more than a little suspicious. “But that clarity always returns. Eventually.”

Link looked down at the floor, the patterns in the tile, the places where his footsteps had left damp marks. He turned Allen's words over in his mind, carefully, warily. He had the feeling he had just been told something important, and he wasn't sure what to do with it.

“How do you feel today?” Link finally asked, lifting his eyes. Allen blinked, looking surprised by not upset. Perhaps this had been the right thing to say.

“Well. Lucid enough. You have an odd way of calming me down.” And then, before Link could properly register the compliment, “Until Kanda works me back up again with his bullshit, that is.”

“That insufferable man,” Link sighed. He reached across the bench and yanked his bag into his lap, tucking his folded practice clothes inside and fussing with the zipper.

“Ridiculous, isn't he?”

“ _Intolerable_.”

“ _Such_ a prick,” Allen agreed.

They were both smiling, now. It was strange. Link felt the touch of something gentle and fond and delicate. What was strange, though, was that soft feeling wasn't for Allen— it was for Kanda.

“Completely intolerable,” Link repeated softly.

He looked down at his hands. He suddenly felt as though he was weighing two precious things against one another. Allen's slender, ethereal frame, like a fading thing. Kanda's burning eyes and his hate and the surprising care that went into his ownership— and for that night, it was ownership— of Link.

“So, you and Kanda,” Allen started. “When you, when you were — was he...”

Link lifted his head with a start, eyes widening. And then Allen stopped short, face turning red.

“Nevermind,” he said. Too fast. He was looking away, he was backing up, he was putting up a wall of distance between the two of them.“It's. It's none of my business.”

He was smiling, but his smile didn't seem so charming anymore. It was hanging by its fingers and teeth, barely righting itself; it was hollow and fighting for life.

“Walker,” Link said.

“I should get going,” Allen said abruptly. He had one hand on the door. “See you later?”

“I—”

Allen was gone before Link could really answer, the heavy gray-grilled door closing with a weighty thud.

 

♦♢♦

 

In the spring of 2001, Kanda was put into ballet classes for the very first time.

He still remembered that spring. He remembered how cold and wet it was. He remembered how the rain gutters had overflowed into the streets, soaking the pavement nightmare-black. He remembered rows of discarded umbrella, the heaps of them lying against garbage cans.

He remembered the anger. He remembered screaming. And he remembered silence. A silence to swallow the Earth whole.

Call it love, call it hate, call it fury, call it grief. The loss of Alma had gripped him; it was echoing through him. It was like a living, physical thing, that pain. It was like a disease, taking life inside his body — and it was too much. It was far too much, it was more than his skinny eight-year old body could handle.

Something he couldn't control.

At least, not right away.

It was a teacher who had first suggested to Tiedoll that Kanda ought to use an extracurricular as an outlet for his _behaviourial issues._ She'd suggested sports. Tiedoll, Kanda's foster father, was always keen on the arts. Dance was a compromise.

His first instinct towards ballet was to hate it. On the surface, it seemed to be completely counter to his entire identity. He hated the ornamentation, the regimentation, the way it was both paradoxically mechanical and hyperemotional, dewy and rigid. Kanda associated himself with neither extreme.

Still, he showed up to his lessons. He allowed himself to be taught. He never once asked to stop, or asked to quit.

Fuck if he knew why.

By the time he turned twelve, Kanda was rapidly outgrowing his child's body. Gangly limbs and pudgy cheeks were being slowly but surely refashioned. His bones began to knit themselves into steel, his legs lengthened, and his arms and fingers grew long and hard. His face grew sharp and narrow, cut like a diamond. He was growing into a dancer's body, into the body of an Olympian. And he _loved_ it.

He loved feeling strong, feeling powerful— _I will never be helpless again._ Step by step, he learned how to bring that power into his movements, how to attack, how to bite. He learned that dance, for all its pageantry and insipid tradition, was firm and foremost a source of freedom. It would be the conduit of his passions, of his fury; it would be his weapon against the world.

He'd met Lenalee in Level C at the School of American Ballet in New York City; the Advanced division. During mixed lessons, they were classroom partners. Even back then, Kanda hadn't been very interested in girls, but he'd liked Lenalee.

She was a strong girl. Prone to crying, sure, but also the type to get back up and keep trying and trying even before her face had dried. In class, the girls wore standard-issue white leotards, the fabric so thin they looked nearly see-through. The other girls were embarrassed by them and often complained, but Lenalee never did. Perhaps she'd known, even then, that her body was nothing to be ashamed of. That it was a goddamn mechanical wonder.

Lenalee was the first girl Kanda ever practiced a lift on. He'd been about fourteen at the time. Ringing his hands around her waist, he'd marveled at how slim she was. At how something so strong could, paradoxically, be so small.

He was having that same thought now, lifting Lenalee across a gray-floored Montreal studio room. Cross had Bizet's suite hooked from his phone to a nearby stereo, and Cross himself was leaning back against the mirror-panelled wall, tracking Kanda and Lenalee's movements with impatient eyes.

Kanda put his hands on Lenalee's hips, her waist, her neck, her legs. It was a little odd, dancing something so straightforwardly romantic with someone he practically considered a sister. Beyond that, the choreography was invigorating — sharp, dramatic, aggressive; the exact kind of dance Kanda liked best. There was a somewhat Spanish feel to this particular dance, the movements sly and foxy. The dramatic extensions of their arms reminded Kanda somewhat of a tango. Twist, pull, leap, release.

“Your timing's off, Kanda,” Cross called out. Kanda grit his teeth. Cross was right, and he hated it. He forced himself to slow down, focusing on the tempo of the music backing them, searching for that innate musicality to drive his movement.

“That's more fucking like it,” Cross groused as Lenalee dropped back into a slow, dramatic arc. Kanda dropped down, and Lenalee stepped towards him, swooping down upon him a bird. Like a swan. “Better. _Better_.”

Lenalee mimed a kiss, one leg raised high.

What was it Allen had said —  he a swan, Kanda a raven? Ridiculous, really. Beyond ridiculous, really —  it was fucking insane. But Kanda couldn't get the thought out of his head.

He thought of ballet's mythic white swan; lyrical, beautiful, doomed. Innocent-yet-not. Perhaps that really was a fair summation of Allen's specific charm.

The gauzy, insubstantial look of him. The shock of scars. His clear voice, _“So, tell me. Where does Link fit into this scene?”_

Kanda's grip on Lenalee tightened.

_I wish I fuckin' knew._

Lenalee fell down against Kanda's chest, the descent controlled. She was breathing hard, each breath leaving her in a soft pant. He then realized that he wasn't faring much better, chest heaving up and down with every inhale. It created a kind of bouncing motion, jostling Lenalee from where she was braced against Kanda's body.

The scene was over. Cross slow-clapped sardonically.

“Well, you're at least listening to the music now,” he said as Lenalee and Kanda climbed back to their feet. “Though it shouldn't have taken you a week of practice to achieve that. Because, you know, that's what dancing is. Movement to _music_.”

Kanda's temper boiled. He opened his mouth to argue, or maybe just call Cross a cunt, but Lena pinched his arm. A silent plea to hold his tongue.

“Anything else?” She said as Kanda fumed.

“Mm. I'm seeing improvement on that last _cambre,_ but you've gotta...”

Cross trailed off as something caught the corner of his eye. He turned his head towards the studio door, the long fall of his red hair following the motion. Neah was leaning against the doorframe, beckoning Cross forwards. His expression was inexplicably forlorn.

Cross cursed, glanced at the watch on his right wrist, and then said, “Fuck it, nevermind. That's enough for today. Go home.”

“You didn't fucking finish explaining,” Kanda pointed out roughly. Cross rolled his eyes. Lenalee pinched him again.

“Quit whining. We'll get to it tomorrow,” Cross said. He glanced back and forth between Neah and Kanda and Lenalee. “You did okay today.”

“But—”

“I said go home,” Cross said. He turned around, scooped up his coat, and went to the door towards Neah. Kanda glared after him, and Lenalee sighed.

“We've been at it for hours,” she said. She bent over at the waist, bracing her hands against her knees as she regained her breath. “It's about time we headed home, I think, or at least got a good shower in.”

Kanda looked away, dissatisfied. He hated stopping when he knew he could do more, hated quitting while there was still work to be done. A pit of unease opened up in his stomach, and for a second, he was tempted to run back after Cross and demand they continue.

“You did good work today,” Lenalee continued. Kanda sighed, looking back at her reluctantly.

“Yeah. You too.”

“Kind of brings me back,” Lenalee grinned, pushing her hair back. “To dance school, I mean.”

“Only we were shittier at it then,” Kanda groused, fighting back a smile of his own. Lenalee laughed.

“Oh, come on. We were only kids.”

“Yeah, we were,” Kanda agreed. He thought back to the girls who stopped eating, the boy who was beat up and nearly died, a girl who broke her foot and told Kanda, face wet with tears, that her career was over. They had too much power as children, a strange power; passive but total. The power of the object. “We were pretty stupid kids.”

“ _You_ were stupid, not me,” Lenalee pointed out. “Always yelling, always cursing. I remember the time you threw a pair of pointe shoes into Danilovich's face. You could've been kicked out for that.” Then, with a little frown, “Why didn't they kick you out, anyways?”

“Because I was good,” Kanda said, blunt. He leaned down to fix the strap of his shoe, which had already come frustratingly loose. Any more wear and it might snap. “You can train dancers, but you can't make talent.”

“Egotist,” Lenalee teased. Kanda straightened up.

“Shut up,” he said. Then, “It's not egotism if it's true. I wouldn't have made it this far if I wasn't talented. You should know. You're talented, too.”

Lenalee's cheeks were pink, maybe from exertion, maybe not.

“Flattery will get you nowhere.”

“Sure it won't.”

“Oh, it definitely won't,” she said, and she straightened up to her full height. “I'm gonna get changed, maybe see if I can catch Allen on his way out. You wanna do drinks tonight?”

“Fuck _no_ , I don't wanna have to drag my ass to rehearsal tomorrow while hungover,” Kanda said, immediate. Lenalee laughed again, a pleasant, feminine laugh. It was a young laugh, the same laugh she'd had at fourteen, and hopefully, it was this laugh she'd keep for the rest of her life.

“Suit yourself.”

She patted him on the arm sympathetically and floated from the room.

Lenalee really was a born dancer. Even when she didn't mean to, she seemed to walk on air. She made the rest of them seem heavy. And maybe they were, compared to her. They were all bogged down, weighted, whereas she had managed to cut herself free.

Kanda went to the bench, picked up his water bottle, took a long drink, and headed out the door.

The halls were mostly empty. Kanda and Lenalee's rehearsal must have run for longer than he'd thought —  the neighbouring studios were vacant, abandoned, and silent.

As he went down the hall and down the stairs towards the lockers, that silence was broken, and he could hear, with increasing clarity, a voice coming from the hallway below.

He heard Link before he saw him, true, but the sight of Link struck Kanda all the same. Struck him hard. Link was leaning against the wall, speaking urgently into the receiver of his iPhone. He was speaking in German, Kanda realized, or perhaps Danish — something he had only heard Link do once before, under very different circumstances.

Kanda seemed to have walked in while the conversation was near its end, and as he made his way down the hallway, approaching Link, Link was lowering the phone from his ear.

His eyes were bright, bright and beautiful beneath those dark, severe brows. Something nasty stirred itself up in Kanda's stomach at the sight. Something like jealousy.

“Who was that?” Kanda found himself asking. He stopped dead in his tracks, standing about three feet away from Link now.

Link's head shot up in surprise. He looked at Kanda, big eyes, blank face — his braid was coming loose, gold hair coming loose, and he was still dressed in his black practice clothes. A mess, but the kind of mess Kanda enjoyed looking at.

“The dir—” Link stopped short. His face flamed up in embarrassment. “The director of the Royal Danish Ballet.”

Kanda tried to remember that the artistic director of the RDB was like. He'd seen him once or twice before at industry events — an imposing, almost threateningly grave man of a solid build. Mustache like the end of a paintbrush. Beady eyes.

“Oh,” he said. Then, cautious, “You two close?”

Link looked down at his phone, the screen glassy and black. For a second, his expression looked a little sad. Then, it was completely unreadable.

“No,” Link finally said. He slipped his phone into his pocket. “No. Not really.”

“Huh,” Kanda said. He didn't move. He just kept standing there, holding his water bottle in both hands, watching Link.

Link wasn't looking at Kanda. He was looking down at his pristine fingernails, examining them for dirt or wear. It would almost be nonchalant, if he wasn't so fucking obviously _trying_ to be nonchalant.

There wasn't really any reason for Kanda to be here, doing this. In fact, he really ought to go—  he had nothing to say to Link, or at least nothing good. Still, despite his better judgement, something compelled him to stay.

“How was your rehearsal?” He asked.

Link looked absolutely bewildered.

“Excuse me?”

“How was your fucking rehearsal?” Kanda repeated. His temper was beginning to flare up again. “Rehearsal? For dancing? You know, that fucking thing we get paid to do?”

“Are you — are you trying to be personable or hostile?” Link asked, raising an eyebrow. Kanda had seen that little face of his one too many times— it pissed him off like nothing else. “Quite frankly, I can't tell.”

_Me neither._

“I'm making fucking conversation, that's what I'm doing,” Kanda said roughly. Link looked distinctly unimpressed.

“You say _fuck_ a lot,” he remarked coolly.

“It's a good word,” Kanda retaliated. He took a step forwards in Link's direction, some invisible magnetism drawing him close. “You can give a fuck, fuck off, fuck up, fuck around.” There was the scent of lemon cleaner, of dust, of aged wood, of sweat. Suddenly, he hated Link's face, Link's hair, Link's body. He hated the way he stood, the way he talked, the way his clothes hung off of him. He hated Link's voice most of all, hated that he knew what it sounded like on a gasp. “I fucked you.”

Link's face broke into an expression of shock, and then, one of muted anger.

“You really wanna talk about that?” He said, voice dropping to a low hiss. “Here? Now?”

“Yeah,” Kanda said. “Yeah, I guess I do.”

“We were drunk,” Link said in a dry, almost contemptuous tone. He averted his eyes. “We got drunk at some ridiculous industry party, you brought me back to your hotel room, and we — we made a silly mistake, and — and it's all in the past now, quite frankly. It was almost a full year ago.”

Kanda took a half-step back, recoiling as if stung.

“Is that really what it meant to you?”

“That's what it was,” Link said. Too soft. He still wouldn't look at Kanda.

“You said you'd be there in the morning,” Kanda said stupidly. _You laughed into my shoulder. We ordered a bottle of Taittinger from room service just so we could stay drunk. You told me about Fokine as we drank, you told me about French literature, about your favorite goddamn kind of cake. It's chiffon cake. I can't fucking believe I remember that. But I remember a lot from that night. I remember everything, and fucking I hate it._ “I asked you to stay. You said you would.”

“I... I had a plane to catch.”

Link was still looking at the floor, not at Kanda.

“I fucking called you,” Kanda said. Link squeezed his eyes shut. He looked desperate.

“I was — what do you want from me?”

“An answer. Were you not interested? Because shit, I can take a no.”

“It's not,” Link temporized, “that I wasn't interested.”

“Then why the fuck didn't you...” But Link's eyes were shut, his head turned to the side, neck exposed, and it was pissing Kanda off, pissing him off that he wouldn't look him in the eye, not even now, when it fucking mattered. He advanced roughly, perhaps savagely, backing Link up against the wall hard so that there was nowhere to run. Kanda's water bottle clattered to the floor as he boxed Link in with both arms braced against the wall, and fuck, they were close, so close Kanda could kiss him. “Hey, _look_ at me, fuck, I don't understand why—”

“Link, you still here? Lenalee and I were... _oh_.”

Kanda and Link both whipped their heads down the hallway at the same time. Allen Walker was standing in the doorframe of a nearby studio, eyes wide.

There was a moment of stunned silence between the three of them, Link and Kanda watching Allen, and Allen watching them. This... couldn't look particularly good, Link pinned back by the weight of Kanda's body. Kanda realized, then, that his knee had begun to creep up between Link's thighs, which had parted against the wall. Fuck. Shit.

Ridiculously, it was the sight of Kanda's forgotten water bottle rolling by Allen's feet that spurred him into action. Kanda pushed off back off the wall, releasing Link.

“You were saying?” Kanda said, feeling bold. Coming from a mouth, it felt like a challenge. And perhaps it was one.

“Ah, Lenalee and I, we were...” Allen paused, pursing his lips. His mind seemed to be working a mile a minute, taking in the situation. What was he thinking? “Should I come back later?”

“Perhaps,” Link began desperately, but Kanda shut him down.

“There's no need for that,” he cut in brusquely. “What were you going to say?”

Allen folded his arms, worrying at his lower lip with his teeth. His gaze raked back and forth from Kanda to Link, drinking them in, looking for all the world as if he was making a particularly difficult choice.

“Lenalee and I were going to head out for drinks tonight,” he said, finally, decisively. His voice was now decidedly aloof. “We wanted to know if you'd come.”

Link let out a nervous little breath that might have been an attempt at laughter.

“I drove here, I shouldn't be drinking—”

“Take a taxi from your hotel,” Kanda said. Then, turning back to Allen sharply, “We'd fucking love to go.”

Link's cheeks had flushed pink.

“I'm not...”

“Well,” Allen said. He was smiling, but there was a clipped quality to his voice; Kanda had heard this voice a thousand times before. It was a Manhattan voice, a fast-track fake-friendly voice, a voice with intent. “Then it's settled.”

Link looked fucking _betrayed_. It was glorious.

“Walker—"

“I'll text you the details,” Allen said, still smiling that big imitation smile. His wide excited eyes, his cheekbones, pale fluttering lashes. _He thinks he's onstage. He lives his life as if he's onstage._ “See you tonight.”

“See you,” Kanda said. Link said nothing. His eyes were closed again, head turned away from them as if he was pretending he was somewhere else.

When Kanda looked back at Allen, he had already turned away, walking back down the hallway with the sauntering step of a performer.

“You have his number?” Kanda asked Link, gruff and quiet. Link cracked an eye open, and it glittered back coldly like a diamond. Like a lake in winter. There was a crackling, icy hatred trapped in his perfect ballet body. He didn't say anything, just looked at Kanda with all his hate. It was the first time Kanda had ever looked at Link and felt a piece of himself reflected there.

“Fuck it,” Kanda said roughly. He went over to where Allen had been standing, bent over to scoop up his water bottle, and said, “See you later, Herr Link.”

Link's open eye looked black beneath the dim studio lights. It looked like a drop of ink. It looked like a solar eclipse.

Kanda picked himself up and went away the way Allen had left, feeling like a conqueror.

 

♦♢♦

 

When watching a dance, the essential thing is to ask oneself questions to which it is possible to provide answers. This was a lesson Cross had taught Allen a very long time ago, when he was a sniveling, shell-shocked little boy, too small for his new pair of canvas shoes. Not 'What does it mean?', in other words, 'What seems to be being said?'

When the man supports the woman's _arabesque_ by holding the calf of her leg, and then manipulates her foot upward behind her until it is touching the back of her head, what seems to be being said? Is he physically and metaphorically manipulating her? Is he serving her? Are they mutually trusting equals?

Is it possible that all of these things could be happening at the same time?

In ballet, it is always essential to ask who ask who, in any given dance-passage, has 'agency.' Who is making things happen? Who is choosing, who is succumbing?

These were the questions Allen had on his mind as he slid up to the bar.

There was no black tulle, no pink toe shoes, no opiate swans, but Allen saw this scene in balletic terms all the same. Link made his entry, stage left, effortlessly sharp and polished in his dark suit jacket. The sharp angles of his coat and brows, with the muted colours of his attire, were the perfect expression of balletic line.

Kanda entered, stage right. His black hair was yanked up into a high ponytail, his eyes were hard with intent; he was beautifully, brutally slapdash with his torn-up jeans, his big gray sweater, his loose white shirt. His knuckles were rough, scraped-up.

As they settled around the table with their drinks, he was vaguely reminded of their night out at the Cardinal. Only now, instead of easy and relaxed, there was an atmosphere of danger all around.

Allen wondered, _Am I choosing them, or am I succumbing to them?_

Sensing that she was intruding on something strangely intimate, Lenalee was quick to abandon the three of them, sequestering herself with Lavi, Miranda, and Marie at a separate table. From across the bar, Allen could see them drinking and laughing and sometimes speaking in conspiratorial whisper. Miranda looked nervous. Lavi looked ecstatically amused.

Allen was nursing a beer, not planning on drinking anything more. He was a terrible drunk; messy, weepy, volatile. Kanda and Link, on the other hand, seemed to have fewer reservations. Kanda was drinking something light and ambery, Link something misty white, maybe a Tom Collins.

“We should order food,” Allen sighed, glancing over at a nearby table that was digging into a plate of nachos. Kanda snorted derisively.

“Bar food is always disgusting. Greasy and vile.”

“I know,” Allen agreed wistfully. “But that's what makes it _good.”_

He reached over to the side of their table and pulled out a battered menu, flipping past the cocktails towards the hot meals — cheese fries, chicken wings, big messy burgers, deep-fried scotch olives. He could feel his mouth watering. Kanda glanced over his shoulder, frowning visibly.

“What the _fuck_. You're practically an athlete. You can't seriously be considering putting that garbage into your body.”

“They have fried doughnuts,” Link added, ignoring Kanda. He was flipping through the menu as well, eyes lingering hungrily over the desserts. Kanda stared.

“You're actually agreeing with him?”

“Doughnuts are good,” Link retaliated self-consciously.

Kanda tilted his head back and let out a laugh.

“Fuck, I pegged you as one of those dancers who ate nothing but kale and quinoa.”

“Even I have my vices.”

“So I've noticed,” Kanda bit back, smooth and poisonous; there was an undercurrent of sexuality here, the edge of _I know your vices_. “Champagne and chiffon cake.”

Link _slammed_ the rest of his drink, stood up abruptly, and said, “Ah, it would appear I'm in need of a refill.”

“Order some doughnuts!” Allen called after him as Link walked briskly towards the bar.

Kanda leaned back in his seat, looking malcontent. He he had his arms wrapped around himself tightly, tapping one finger against the side of his arm restlessly. Allen watched him closely, the purse and unpurse of his paper pink lips. He really was frustratingly gorgeous.

His eyes found Allen's, and Allen realized, then, that he had Kanda's full attention.

“There's something else that I l—” Kanda paused, reconsidered his words. His eyes retreated, just once, before making a quick return. “Something else I don't mind about you.”

There was a curious honestly in Kanda's tone. An openness.

“What is it?” Allen asked.

Kanda leaned forwards, elbows resting against the table.

“I like your ability. But ability — ability's one thing,” Kanda said. He glanced back towards the bar, to Link's broad back. “Link has the ability, but when he's onstage, he's missing something.” He laughed, completely devoid of mirth. “A soul, maybe. That goddamn machine.”

“He's got a soul,” Allen said smoothly. “You know that.”

Something prickled sharp in Kanda's features, then seemed to soften.

“I thought I did. Just the once,” he answered quietly. “But I was wrong.”

“Oh?”

Kanda toyed with the brim of his glass, circling it with one finger.

“He's not like us,” he said. “When he dances, it's just— it's just fucking movement.” He lifted his staggeringly blue eyes. “But you, when you dance, you — you _feel_.”

And there was that feeling again, of being pinned, of being trapped. That was what it meant, Allen realized, to be alone with Kanda. This was always what it meant. Kanda had power, and worse, he knew his own power. He could dominate you with one fucking look. It was this look, Allen was sure, that had lured Link into Kanda's bed.

“How can I not?” Allen said.

Kanda's laugh was a velvet thing. Allen wanted to wrap himself in it and wear it to bed.

“Good,” he said, voice low. He pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his sweater and slapped it down against the table, but he didn't pull one out. Not yet. “Good answer. Go on.”

God, Allen was beginning to realize... just how much he wanted Kanda.

“Dance —  it's. It's so personal, isn't it?” Allen affected a shallow laugh. Kanda sat and watched him, mute. When he realized that Kanda was in no rush to pick up, he continued, “It was a long time before I even started to dance. For years I trained as an acrobat.”

“An acrobat?” Kanda intoned, raising an eyebrow.

“An acrobat?” Link repeated. They both glanced to side, surprised—  Link was gliding into his seat with liquid ease, a papery basket of fritters in one hand and a fresh drink in the other.

“I was, um,” Allen laughed again, eyes falling down to the table. Grains and whorls in the dark, burnished wood. “I was studying circus arts.”

Kanda nearly choked on his next sip.

“You're _shitting_ me.”

“I'm serious,” Allen continued. His mouth twitched with the beginnings of a small smile. “My... my adoptive father had a long history in modern circus performance. I thought it was the most amazing thing. I wanted to be a Cirque du Soleil aerialist. Or a clown.”

“You wanted to be,” Kanda repeated, “a fucking clown.”

“What changed?” Link asked, frowning. Here, written into his brow, was the look of precise energy Allen loved him for.

Allen's smile fell.

“He, ah. My, my father, he died,” he said. “After that, Cross and Neah took me in.” He reached for the basket of fritters, just to have something to do with his hands, but didn't eat it. “I learned ballet from them. It was... a sort of way of reinterpreting what I'd learned from M... from my father. It gave me peace.”

_Mana gave me movement, Neah gave me music._

He put his fritter down on a napkin, lifted his beer and took a long drink. Suddenly, he felt all wrong, all grief and all shame and all fear; he felt like the child he once was. He was trying and failing to hike his smile back up onto his face.

“Maybe that sounds stupid,” he said from the brim of his lager.

“It doesn't,” Kanda said.

Allen looked up at them, these beautiful men. There was a strange softness in Kanda's expression, so at odds with his usual alert celerity. Stranger still was how Link seemed to reflect that same look. Link reached across the table, fingers sliding against the wood towards seeking out Allen's hand, to hold it, to touch him. Uncertain, he retreated, but it was too late to pretend he had not moved. Allen's heart surged with a burst of unexpected warmth.

“Quit staring,” Allen said, looking down at the table. Then, seeing his doughnut resting in a ring of its own powder, he picked it back up and examined it anew. “Honestly, you two look like you're at a funeral, not a bar. Relax a little. Eat a doughnut.”

Kanda tucked his head down against his collarbone and snorted.

“I can't quite figure you out, Allen Walker,” Link sighed, but he complied, reaching into the basket. Allen smiled, and found it was completely genuine. How odd.

“Because I'm crazy, remember?”

“You keep saying that. I disagree.” Link took a bite of his doughnut and chewed heartily. It was nice, really, meeting another dancer who was so shameless about food. He waited until he'd swallowed to continue speaking, chasing his doughnut with a knock of his drink. “But you're certainly something else.”

“Something else?” Allen set his drink down and leaned forwards enthusiastically, his smile widening into a fierce, playful grin. “Like a fairy, or a nutcracker, or a temple dancer, or a swan.”

“This isn't a fucking ballet,” Kanda said. He was trying to sound annoyed, but was doing a bad job of it; he was almost smiling, lips quirking up so slightly into an expression that was so oddly and so sweetly fond. “I told you before.”

“You were wrong then, you were wrong now,” Allen said.

“Really, now?” Link raised an eyebrow. “Don't tell me I'm destined to meet a shocking death at the end of Act 1.”

“Link, darling, I'd _never_ use you as cheap plot fodder,” Allen said, fluttering his lashes. He cocked his head to the side, “That's Kanda's job.”

“Fuck you,” Kanda said. “I'm coming back as a ghost in Act 2 to haunt your lame ass.”

Link threw his head back and laughed for real. It was lovely. Allen laughed back, the sound echoing distantly, unreal.

Wanting Kanda, wanting Link. He was running out of ways to separate the two, to distinguish them.

He reached back for his beer clumsily, only to find that it was empty. A shame. He liked how drinking gave him something to do with his hands. Perhaps he'd ordered a second. It was a good night.

He lifted his head, thinking of calling over a waiter, and was treated to the sight of Link casually reaching over for Kanda's pack of cigarettes, slipping one between his long fingers and lifting it to his lips. There was a practiced fluidity to is motions. He leaned back in his seat, withdrawing a lighter from his suit jacket. He brought it to his mouth. Wisp, smoke, the scent of fire, the scent of ash. Link pulled the cigarette away and let out a long, steady stream of smoke.

Kanda looked fucking scandalized.

“I thought you didn't smoke,” he said, eyes flashing bright with anger. Link glanced back at him as though bored.

“Everyone smokes in Europe,” he said, smoother than Allen had ever heard him.

Allen put his head down on the table and collapsed into fit of uproarious laughter.

He'd seen this ballet as well— danced it across a thousand stages, seen it from the rows of a thousand theaters. He had lived it, he'd breathed it. It never ended well, not once; the swan dead of a broken heart, the prince lying prone with a sword pointing into his corpse, the raven shorn of his black feathers, exiled.

Perhaps — perhaps this would be the night of his great revision. His remaking.

Maybe it was crazy, but he wanted to believe they could love him. Just maybe.

Just for tonight.

 

♦♢♦

 

“This is familiar, isn't it?” Kanda said, glancing back at Link. Allen followed his gaze with slow, watery eyes.

After his third beer, Allen had sort of given up on ordering his own drinks, resorting to shamelessly stealing sips of whatever Link and Kanda brought back from the bar. There was a thrill in testing flavour from flavour, the bitter darkness of Kanda's whiskey and his tequila, the sharp sweetness of Link's iced cocktails. _Girly drinks_ , Kanda called those, but Link didn't mind at all.

There was a discarded pile of drink umbrellas lying near Allen's elbow, which he was on-and-off fiddling with. To his right, there was a musty old ashtray, filled with the dead ends of Link and Kanda's cigarettes. Allen was learning to enjoy the smell of smoke. It was a highly Pavlovian conditioning.

“Mmm,” Link said. He looked back at Kanda, something in his eyes faraway and cloudy. “Yes... yes and no.”

It took a moment for Allen to realize what they were talking about. He stiffened slightly once he did, posture rightening itself nearly imperceptibly as he lifted his head to listen. Perhaps he was less subtle than he thought, though, because Kanda caught him straight away. He turned towards Allen sharply, lips pursed, eyes wary.

“You know, don't you?” Kanda said, tone vaguely accusatory. “How much?”

“Not much,” Allen said quickly.

Kanda let out a short sigh.

“Well. It was a good night. He threw his drink in my face, I nearly fuckin' killed him, we fucked twice, he left before I woke up.”

“That doesn't sound all that romantic,” Allen said unthinkingly. Kanda huffed a breath that might've been a laugh.

“Only because he's doing a poor job of explaining it,” Link said. He put his face in his hands. Through the fan of his fingers, Allen could see that his face was hot and red. “Was it... was it only twice?”

“Yeah,” Kanda said. “Well. Leaving out the part where I blowed you in a supply closet.”

“Blowed?” Link repeated, sounding genuinely confused. His accent was stronger now that he was drunk, _o_ sounds elongated, consonants hard, popping his words in a way that didn't sound entirely naturally. It was nothing short of adorable.

“Blowed, like a blowjob,” Kanda explained, oddly patient. Allen could feel his own cheeks heating up with a flush. “You know what blowjob means, right?”

“Yes,” Link said slowly. He closed his eyes. “Yes. I... remember.”

“I should think you do,” Kanda laughed. His laugh was neither kind nor unkind; it was for his own benefit, soft and self-satisfied.

A shiver travelled through Allen's body. He looked down at his hands, his skinny wrists, the places where red tattoos intersected over scar tissue. Knowing was bad enough, but suddenly, he was picturing it. Kanda on his knees, his mouth working over Link's cock, wet and slick and too-fast, because it was Kanda. And Link— what sort of face did he make? What sort of noises? Did he grip Kanda's hair and force his throat? When he moaned, was it open and wanting, or sharply cut off? And when he returned the favour —because this was Link, the prince, of course he would— how did he do it?

“I... thought this was none of my business,” Allen said. He laughed shakily, squirming slightly in his seat.

“I change my mind. I want you to hear it.” Kanda's eyes on Allen were dark and huge. The blue in them had turned black as night. Allen marvelled at them, and the way they seemed to swallow him whole. “I want you to— I want him to fuckin' answer for it.”

“There's nothing to answer for,” Link said, head lolling in his hands. He looked strangely exhausted, but Allen didn't think it was from drinking.

“Sure there fucking is,” Kanda said, but he was still staring steadily at Allen, consuming him. “Why didn't you call me back?”

 _"Verdammt_ , _ver—_  and what, what if I _had_ called back?” Link blinked up at Kanda, mouth curled into a hopeless little smile. “What would we have done? Go out to dinner? I was in _Denmark_.” There was a definite sadness in Link's eyes, but it was an austere sadness. It was stiff, as though he was putting great effort into managing his emotional output. Was sadness the source of all his coldness? “We had a good night, yes, but... we're too busy, we have too much at stake. It wouldn't work.”

Kanda tore his gaze from Allen and looked down into his glass, thinking it over. His hair tickled his face and neck, curtaining him.

“You should've,” he demurred. “I don't care. You should've.”

“I'm sorry,” Link said. “I wish...”

“He's a coward,” Kanda said, louder now. He was speaking to Allen.

“He's trying to be practical,” Allen said hazily.

“That's the same thing,” Kanda said. He lifted his head again— eyes so hard and dark, mouth parting around his words with a careful, careful _wanting_. “But... you're not so practical, are you, Allen Walker?”

“Wouldn't dream of it,” Allen said. He could fee his pulse quickening, heart starting up in excitement. It was... it was impossible to resist Kanda's desire, it was impossible not to return his want. Without thinking, Allen's foot found Kanda's leg under the table. It traveled up his calf, towards his thigh. “Something else you don't mind about me?”

“I don't mind it,” Kanda said. His voice was heavy. Allen considered sliding the arch up his foot up against the swell of Kanda's crotch, but resisted the temptation. Instead, he rested his foot on top of Kanda's knee and left it there.

As if he somehow knew what was going on underneath the table, Link laughed into his own hands. It was an abrupt, ingenuine laugh, filled with that same sad austerity. Allen and Kanda both turned to look at him, their prince, beautifully and unnervingly raw in his unhappiness.

“Are... are you two trying to make me jealous?”

“That depends,” Kanda said, “on who you're jealous of.”

“I don't know,” Link said, shoulders still shaking with laughter.

“Is that so?” Allen purred.

“I don't know,” Link repeated, and now his voice was shaking, too.

“I think you do,” Kanda said, soft, dangerous.

He leaned back in his chair, breathing in deep and slow like an animal. Across from him, Kanda was looping his hands into Link's collar, pulling him in closer. It was a good show, Allen thought, stirring restlessly in his seat, skin prickling too hot. It was good, watching them. Fucking hot.

“I have an idea,” Kanda said, breath in Link's face, eyes wandering between the two boys at his table, “if you're up for making an old mistake new again. And making it right.”

 

♦♢♦

 

They waited until they'd reached Kanda's hotel room to begin touching Allen.

Never one to wait any longer than strictly necessary, Kanda was the first to start kissing him. His lips were on Allen's from the moment he shut the door, backing Allen up hard against the wall and pinning him by the wrists.

There was no shame in Kanda's kiss, no tact, and nothing so much as decency— much like Kanda himself. It was hot, wet, and dirty, moving from a simmer to a boil as Kanda swiped his tongue across Allen's lips, demanding entry. Allen's head lolled back against the wall, overwhelmed by the heat of it all, his lips caught between Kanda's teeth, Kanda's tongue tracing his. What was more was the knowledge that Link was watching them, watching him.

Allen's legs fell apart, wanton, and he let out a high whine.

Somewhere behind the both of them, Link chuckled.

When Kanda finally released Allen, he could see that Link was backed up near the bed, working his suit jacket off of his shoulders as he watched the two of them with dark eyes.

“Patience is a virtue, you know,” he said, but his eyes remained fixed, taking the in hungrily, his meticulous image marred by the telltale swell of his cock straining against his pants. Enjoying the show. Allen grinned, lifting his chin to expose his neck. Putting himself on display.

“I've never been virtuous a day of my life,” Kanda murmured. His eyes were wandering between Link and Allen. “Besides, hard to be patience when you have this wanton thing making eyes at you.”

“Even so,” Link said, a little breathless. Good. _Good_.

“C'mon, take me to bed,” Allen whispered, reaching down to palm Kanda through his pants. Kanda let out a sharp hiss as Allen dug the heel of his hand against the brand of his hard cock. “I want you both. _Now_.”

“See what I mean?” Kanda said to Link, laughing darkly. “Like a fucking cat in heat.”

“Such misbehaviour,” Link agreed. Allen shivered. His next breath came out as a heavy pant. “What _will_ we do with him?”

“Whatever we goddamn want, I imagine,” Kanda said. Suddenly, he brought his hands up to ring around Allen's neck, nails scraping over the tendons and cords of Allen's neck. Startled by his own arousal, Allen keened out loud, and Kanda laughed again, gorgeously cruel. “And you'll let us, won't you? Jesus Christ.”

“Kanda,” Allen said, reaching forwards blindly, hands connecting with the front of Kanda's shirt. Something in his mind was shutting downside, something hot and wanting and submissive, and he dug his fingernails into the soft cotton of Kanda's sweater, begging him wordlessly. “I— I, you...”

“He's even worse than you are,” Kanda said. The loose ring of his hands around Allen's neck tightened, and a thrill shot through Allen's spine, Kanda's fingers were pressing over his windpipe, constricting him— and then he was freed again, and he slid back against the wall, dizzy with arousal.

“Bring him here,” Link said. “Now.”

“And you call me impatient,” Kanda said, and then he grabbed Allen by the arm and dragged him roughly towards the bed, knocking him over until he fell down flat onto his back.

When he opened his eyes, they were both on the bed with him, on their knees and hovering above him. He watched in paralyzed fascination as Kanda leaned over Allen's supine body to kiss Link, hands wandering between the two of them to spread Link's shirt open. And fuck, fuck, this had to be the hottest thing he'd ever seen. The hottest thing he ever would see. Link's eyes were half-shut, lidded to a foggy slant as his mouth slid against Kanda's in a deep, hungry kiss.

“You taste... like I remember,” Kanda said against Link's mouth, nearly imperceptible. Link leaned back out of the kiss, breathing hard. His shirt was hanging open, now, revealing the hard ballet body Allen had seen once before in the studio locker room.

“That sounds very nearly romantic, Kanda,” Link said. There was a glint of amusement in those black-brown eyes of his. Kanda hummed, eyes flickering down to Link's crotch.

“Fuck off,” Kanda said, but it was lightly. He glanced back to Allen and, maybe catching the set of his eager eyes, raised an eyebrow. “Enjoying the view?”

“How... how could I not?” He returned clumsily. Link hummed, edging closer to Allen on his knees.

“Flatterer,” he said. And then his hands were on Allen's chest, his waist, his hips, and he was saying, “You know, I do believe you're wearing far too many clothes.”

Link bent down to kiss him. Kanda's kiss had been fast and dirty, yes, but Link's kiss was thorough, so deep that Allen couldn't _breathe_. He felt like he was drowning. Drowning in the taste of sugar and whiskey and smoke.

He released Allen too soon, however, soon enough that Alln was tempted to protest and drag him back in. However, his complaints vanished quickly as Link's lips were replaced by his hands, sliding up the slate of Allen's stomach to pull the fabric of his shirt up his belly.

“On your knees, Walker,” he said. Allen obeyed without a word.

The two of them made short work of Allen's clothes, Allen lifting his arms as Link pulled his shirt off of his body, spreading his knees wide as Kanda popped the button open on his jeans and began to work them down his thighs along with his underwear. His cock sprang free, hard and red, and Allen moaned openly as Kanda reached down to palm it while Link carefully pulled Allen's socks and shoes off.

There was something strangely intoxicating about being entirely naked while the two of them were still practically fully dressed. It made him feel exposed, vulnerable. Powerless, like a thing to be used. And he _loved_ it.

“You're kinda cute like this,” Kanda whispered, giving Allen an idle stroke as he twitched and shuddered and moaned, loud and helpless. Link was behind Allen, watching with his hands steady on Allen's waist. “Look at you. You're leaking already.”

Kanda pulled his hand up to show Allen, and surely enough, the tips of his fingers were glistening with precome. Allen's face went red with shame.

“I can't help it,” he said, fists curling into the white sheets of Kanda's bed. “Not when you're touching me like that, fuck.”

“Is that so?” Link said. He reached around, hands groping over the surface of Allen's chest lazily before rolling one nipple between his fingers _hard_. This was enough to shock a breathy gasp from Allen. “I'm beginning to get the idea that you like being tossed around, Allen.” His breath was hot against the shell of Allen's years. “Perhaps you'd like to be tossed between us.”

Allen couldn't think of anything to say to that but _oh please God fuck yes yes._ So he kept his mouth shut, staring ahead at the wall as Kanda continued to pump him lazily.

“Between us, huh,” Kanda said, voice low. “Mm. Fuck. Taking a cock from both ends. I bet he would like it.”

“Would you?” Link asked, still tweaking at Allen's nipple with one hand, the other hand sliding down to cup the curve of his ass.

Allen took a sharp breath. Then, he nodded, tight and fast.

“Out loud,” Kanda said. His hand slowed to a hand, leaving Allen hard and wanting and dying for friction. “Come on, you can do better than this.”

And oh God, Allen wanted to do better, wanted to be good, good for them—

“Fuck me,” he blurted, every inch of his body shivering with the white-hot flush of want, of need. “Fuck me, fuck my mouth, bend me over, come in me—”

Link bowed his head and let out this breathy little laugh.

“The mouth on you,” he said in hazy, heated wonder. He let out a swear in German, the hand at Allen's chest now dropping down so that the both of them were splaying shamelessly over Allen's ass. “Kanda— do you, you have...”

“Hold on,” Kanda said. He kissed Link swiftly on the mouth, then rolled to the side to fumble with the side table. He tossed a small bottle in Link's direction, which Link caught one-handed — it was a good throw and a better catch, and both Kanda and Link were grinning, wild, beautiful, drunk, young. Allen shivered, palms warm against the bedsheets, ass-out, and God. God, this wasn't a dream, was it?

No, he decided, as Kanda guided Allen up into his arms for another long, messy kiss. No. He could never dream up something like this — the way Kanda's mouth looked when it was red and spit-slicked from kissing, the way Link's slick fingers would feel as they first pushed into him. Kanda let him fall, then, and Allen fell. He dropped back down to his hands and knees, whimpering as Link scissored a second finger into him, fingerfucking him slow and deep and thorough. Working him open to take his cock.

“I've wanted you since the moment I saw you.”

This from Kanda, gorgeously low and fierce, something in his eyes a little wild. He dragged his hands down through Allen's hair, out of his eyes. He was on his knees in front of Allen, unzipping his pants and pulling them down his thighs to free his cock. His dick was big, bigger than Allen's. Allen liked that, somehow. When it came to sex, he always liked feeling smaller, feeling weaker. Link and Kanda, with their broad shoulders and hard eyes, were good for that.

“Like something from a fucking dream,” Kanda went on. There was a strange look in his eyes, a sort of genuine wonder, as if Allen really had slipped out of some fiction or fantasy. "Can't take my eyes off you."

As Link slipped a third finger into Allen, stretching his hole wide, Kanda guided his cock down to Allen's lips. Allen leaned in to meet him, and above him he could hear Kanda laughing, calling him eager, but Allen didn't _care_ , he didn't care if he looked pathetic or needy or like a slut. He wrapped his mouth around the head of Kanda's dick, eyes fluttering shut as he swirled his tongue around it. Kanda made a low sound, rocking deeper into Allen's mouth in one subtle motion.

It was good, like this. So good. The salty taste of Kanda, the sensation of Link's hand on his hipbone, the fingers of Link's left hand pumping in and out of him, sending little sparks of pleasure sizzling down his spine as he hit that spot inside of Allen, the spot that made him feel like he was going _crazy._

And then, Link's fingers were sliding out of Allen in a smooth, clean motion. Allen made a sound that was something of a whine, humming around Kanda's dick. Kanda made a sharp sound that was half moan and half laugh. His hands were tugging at Allen's hair hard enough to hurt, and he was saying, “Fuck, just wait, wait for it. God, you really are a fucking cat in heat, ass popped out like a, like a fuckin' _whore—_ ”

_Yes, yes, yes, God._

Then, finally, Allen felt the sensation of Link's cock coming up to press against him. When he aligned himself, it was at first only that, a blunt pressure against Allen's ready hole. Who knew Link could be such a fucking tease?

Please, please, fuck me, come in me, Allen wanted to beg, but his mouth was stopped shut, and all he could do was moan helplessly around the thick cock in his mouth, desperate and needy and dripping wet.

“Beautiful,” Link gasped at last, nails digging into Allen's skinny hipbones hard. Hard enough, certainly, to leave a deep red indentation of Link's fingers pressed into his skin.

_Like he's marking me._

This was the last clear thought Allen had before Link pushed into Allen hard, forcing the breath out of his chest.

The feeling of Link filling him up, slick and hot and so thick, was— it was total. It was everything. He couldn't think, could barely breathe as Link sent his first thrust ramming into him. Link fucked him hard, hard and _thankless_ , and it was too fucking much, too much fucking stimuli from all ends and _God_ did Allen love it.

As it following Link's head, Kanda canted his hips forwards into a shallow thrust, fucking into Allen's wet mouth as he yanked his hair back tight. Allen's eyes prickled with tears as Kanda urged him deeper and deeper, his throat working around the urge to _gag_ around Kanda's length.

His breaths came shuddering against Kanda's navel, fast and a little panicked, but he refused to pull back until Kanda let him. By the time Kanda eased back to let Allen breathe, Allen was panting hard. A sloppy string of saliva still connected him to the tip of Kanda's cock, the image gorgeously obscene.

God, it was— it was so fucking much, almost too much, Link's cock pounding into his ass, Kanda's cock in his mouth, taking everything he had to offer with rapacious abandon.

Link was saying something, something in some other language, and Kanda—

“A-Allen, _ah_ , y— _God_ , you're fucking perfect, you're—”

 _I could fall in love with them,_ Allen thought distantly, something in his belly building bright and hot. _I could fall in love with them. I really could, easily._

Allen came first, back arching, mouth panting open around Kanda's cock. Kanda and Link weren't far behind— Kanda came with a loud swear, his spilling into Allen's mouth and dribbling down his chin. Then Link, filling Allen up, leaving him wet and loose and leaking.

For a long moment, Allen simply braced himself against the bed and trembled, body reeling from the overwhelming tumult of his orgasm. He was between lax and tense, between hot and cold, between a thousand emotions at once. His mind was buzzing with a post-high numbness. His body was sore, muscles strained. Between the sheen of sweat coating him and the spatter of come leaking down his thighs and mouth, he felt filthy.

Not unpleasantly so, however.

Allen opened his eyes. Kanda's eyes were half-lidded. He was carding through Allen's mussed hair gently and vaguely, as if only half-aware of his actions. His chest was heaving up and down. Behind him, he could hear Link breathing hard. His hands were feathering lightly over Allen's hips and waist, tracing some indistinguishably light pattern.

“Good,” Link said, breaking this silence. His voice was completely raw. “Good. You did good.”

Allen collapsed against the sheets and let out a sigh.

He'd only ever wanted to be good.

 

♦♢♦

 

Allen came another two times that evening. Once, Link simply leaned back and watched as Kanda took Allen, palming himself idly and murmuring praise. _Oh, my prince._ Then, it was Link's mouth closing around Allen's cock, then tonguing into Allen's ass until Allen was seeing white. There was a strangely natural feeling to this, to the intimacy between them. Touching came as simply and as instantly as a laugh. Kiss, touch, bite, words whispered into a shoulder. “You really are something else. Like a dream.”

There was a profound thrill in exploring their bodies. Most thrilling of all was discovering the ways that their bodies, so perfect and so beautiful, were imperfect, unbeautiful. Smell messes of scars on Link's chest, on Kanda's shoulder. Bruises, sores, and white callouses from years of dancing, covering their feet and calves. Kanda's uneven, bitten-down fingernails. A subtle unevenness in Link's front teeth. Chapped lips against his, burying him.

They put themselves to bed sometime around 2 AM, making lazy, possibly hopeless promises to call into rehearsal sick together.

They lay in the dark, curled together. Allen was in the middle, facing Link. Kanda slept with his nose pressed to Allen's neck, right over a big bruise he'd left not a half hour earlier.

“This really was a mistake, wasn't it?” Allen whispered up to Link. Link blinked at him through the darkness. The cold wash of the moon cast his features in a bluish light. It reminded Allen of stage lights. “Nevermind. Come here.”

Link shifted closer, until he was so close they were nearly touching noses. His expression was gentle. His eyes were faraway. It seemed impossible, even ridiculous to think there was anything mechanical about him. His heart was beating beneath his skin. Allen could hear it. Its beating was steady and percussive, like something Allen could dance to.

_When he dances, it's just movement._

“Can I ask you something, Link?” Allen said. He touched Link's collarbones. “It's something important. Something I've been wondering for a while now.”

Link nodded. His blonde hair was loose, falling around his shoulders, and it made Allen's heart ache.

“Do you enjoy dancing?” Allen asked.

Something broke in Link's expression. He turned his face into his pillow.

“I don't know.”

“Then why do you do it?”

“It's my life,” Link murmured.

“You could have another life, if you wanted.”

“This is the life I have,” Link said. Then, barely, audible, “It's… it’s what I have.”

Allen could hear what he really meant to say: _It’s the only thing I have._

“You could have something else,” Allen continued, breath catching. “Something that makes you happy.”

At Allen's back, Kanda stirred in his sleep. His breath was warm on Allen's skin.

Allen whispered, “Kanda will never say it, but I think it'll break him if you're not here when he wakes up.”

Link peeked back at Allen, shy as a child.

“I... I don't... I'd rather not make a promise I can't keep.”

“You needn't promise anything,” Allen said. “Just stay here.”

Link turned his face back into his pillow. Allen reached out and touched the side of his face.

“You think too much,” he sighed. “It'll be the death of you.”

Link's laugh, though muffled against the white cotton of his pillow, was the most beautiful thing Allen had ever heard.

 

♦♢♦

 

There is something essential you must understand about ballet.

Unique among the arts, ballet has no written texts or standardized notation. Other than through the application of video technology or memorization, is no single reliable form of recording dances. As a result, ballet's link to the past is a half-lost one. There is no way of knowing what the first ballets looked like, or even being sure they resemble the graceful, ornamented dances we see performed today.

This is an art passed exclusively from teacher to student, from body to body. A dancer today represents a kind of evolution on his own; he creates a link back to a lost world of courts, kings, and aristocracy, while paradoxically marking the irreproducible rhythm and soul of his own time.

Ballet looks back to the past, but cannot recapture it. To dance ballet is to participate in this unceasing ritual of loss; a primitive, pagan homage to the ephemeral.

_(A last rite for things unlasting.)_

And yet.

In all this pageantry, all this beauty, it's easy to forget that sometimes, every so often, some things do remain.

Sometimes, they stay.

When Allen closed his eyes, he thought to himself, _When I wake up, Link will be here. And Kanda will be here. And maybe I'll take a bath. And maybe we'll have breakfast together. And maybe they'll still want to kiss me. And Kanda can teach me to dance bravura, and Link will scold my high releve._

_For a short while, at least, we'll gain back what we've lost._

 

**Author's Note:**

> [Giselle Act 2 Pas de Deux](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ql3o-1eSdbQ)  
> [Carmen Showpiece Pas de Deux](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_0WZTYbi4c) 
> 
> I'd also like to point(e) out that there's no such thing as The Royal Canadian Ballet. It's a completely made-up company, since I didn't want to go through the pains of researching a real ballet company's structure and schedule. The American Ballet Theatre and the RDB are super real, though. 
> 
> Also, it's very illegal to smoke in public places in Canada.


End file.
